


Grounded

by Phlyarologist



Category: Final Fantasy VI
Genre: Ambiguous Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Mid-Canon, Multi, Phoenix (Final Fantasy) - Freeform, some people commit burglary to cope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:49:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28075734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phlyarologist/pseuds/Phlyarologist
Summary: TheBlackjackhas crashed, the survivors thrown on their own resources in a ruined world. Locke thinks he's the only one.
Comments: 17
Kudos: 12
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ovely](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ovely/gifts).



> Dear recip,
> 
> I may have gotten a bit carried away here. In my defense, your requests for this fandom were really, really good. I hope you enjoy this story, and wish you a happy Yuletide.
> 
> (Spoilery content notes for this fic available [at this link](https://pastebin.com/BQHYyY9P) if needed!)
> 
> With thanks to [Moriri](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Moriri) for troubleshooting, brainstorming help, and the title.

The gas bag was punctured and time seemed to be moving very slowly. A calm and fatalistic voice inside him whispered, “It's happening.” They were losing altitude already, and they would soon be falling faster. The voice said “It's happening again.” He looked toward the bow – toward the stern – dammit, where was he supposed to be? Where could he help? What could he do? What could anyone?

There were coils of ropes amidships – was that good for anything? Any way to slow their descent, or keep these groaning timbers together? He looked at Setzer – no, no use there, guy was staring in glazed resignation at the steering wheel as it jerked and shivered in his hands. Edgar, then? He knew all this physics stuff – Locke turned toward him, but then staggered – the ship's back was broken – fore and aft starting to skew away from each other, the planks yawning wide to show into the hold and then _through_ the hold into roiling gray sky -

And the voice in Locke's head said, dispassionately, “She's going to fall. Again. And you're not going to do anything.”

The hell I'm not, he thought, suddenly regaining control of his limbs. Celes – Celes had been standing by the rail, Celes who he could never make anything up to – he sprinted toward her, not even knowing what he meant to do, but it'd at least be _something_ -

But the _Blackjack_ 's broken hulk yawed to one side and the timbers splintered under the strain, like toothpicks, and before he could reach her she was dropping out of view. He threw out his hand and for an instant he thought he saw her staring back, wide-eyed, but – did he not reach far enough? Was she not reaching back?

“You let that happen,” the voice said, and he whirled around in fury, stuffing the despair down for later – he would prove it wrong, he'd do _something_ right, he'd save _somebody_ -

Across a widening gulf in the deck, the wind whipping in their faces, Edgar called to him, “Locke! Do you know Float?”

“No. But if we can get – if we can just -”

“That's too bad. I don't, either.” Edgar was – grinning, actually. As if there were any appearances left to keep up.

“What do we do?” Locke shouted at him.

“Well. Nothing, I'm afraid. Prayer won't accomplish much now, if it ever did.”

Why was he like this? Why was he like this _now?_ “Small words! Talk fast! We need a plan! I won't let anyone else -”

It happened so slowly, in his mind's eye, and he still wasn't fast enough – a mass of blocks and line came down from the hemorrhaging balloon and smashed to the deck before Edgar's feet, and even that slight weight was enough – the two halves of the ship whirling away from each other – every one of them falling, and falling alone.

“Gods, you're stupid,” said the voice in his head. “This is what you get. A rat like you, thinking he could save anyone.”

The gas supply gave out. The balloon collapsed, empty. And that was that.

*

A red explosion of pain, and he saw Rachel, dim and shadowy, going through the steps alone of a country dance that was always meant to be partnered. Unsteadily he ran to take his place at her side -

*

\- and woke, in a stand of bramble, his clothes and skin torn to shreds. His mangled traveling bag spilled red-gold feathers that charred to black as their magic spent, dragging him back from the precipice every time. It was morning; it was not worth counting how many times he must have died in the night.

He woke, and wept himself sick, lying in thorns and blood under a flat orange sky. “This is what happens,” said the voice inside him, as he stared sightlessly upward. “This was always gonna happen. You've never managed to hold onto anything.”

Evening came, and the survival instinct won out. He clumsily cut himself out of the thicket, and found he could walk without resorting to the few weak healing spells the dead Espers had drilled into him, and gathered up all the Phoenix down that hadn't yet crumbled. What to do with it now he didn't know.

From the flakes of ash snowing out of his bag, in the second morning of the new world, he might have died again overnight, of his injuries or sun poisoning or the cold. He might have died as much as twice. Or maybe this was leftovers from his fall. Did it matter? He was alive, and in all likelihood, alone. Had anyone else had enough Phoenix down on hand to ward off death from that fall? Not likely. Relm or the old man might have been able to pull something off with magic; Terra could fly if she remembered in time, if she had the strength left to transform; Celes -

\- had gone down over that dark ocean and he hadn't saved her, hadn't even been able to convince her he was sorry, he'd never gotten to say “hey I saw you on the Floating Continent and you're a miracle and I feel like shit for ever doubting,” and he wondered now, playing the moment back in his head over and over again, if she had refused his hand on purpose.

It stormed for several days, off-colored clouds dumping their burden of lightning and sleet. He improvised a shelter under the trees and foraged halfheartedly; every animal he encountered seemed disoriented and afraid, easy enough to knock over the head. If he let anything happen to him, the Phoenix would reel him back in again, and he hated the idea of wasting something so beautiful. For the same reason, he couldn't just abandon its gift – walk off into the wilderness and leave the parcel of Phoenix down behind and let what happened, happen. No. He was alive, and he didn't want to believe in a universe where these things happened without reason.

His strength slowly came back, but he lost it again every night, staring into his weak fire and sorting the Returners into the might-have-made-its and the certainly-dead.

Edgar was the latter, right? Had to be. Stupid bastard was flippant to the last, and no one would ever see him again. He had been a friend, and a good one, and now he was just one more person who'd slipped through Locke's fingers. One more person he couldn't protect, if he'd even presumed to try.

Was this all to teach me a lesson? he thought, wildly, one feverish midnight. He had not slept, he had barely eaten, and he had not bothered to fix the gap in his roof that kept dripping icy rain down the back of his neck. (He had thought, Okay, this sensation will help me focus, it's a good reason not to lie around crying, if I can't rest then I'll get up and do something – but it hadn't been a good enough reason. He had still lain around crying and now he was soaked and brutally cold.) He thought, Am I supposed to learn from this? Am I being smacked down for arrogance? For not wanting to let go?

No. That'd be too cruel, hurting so many people just to get at him. Too many people, and _amazing_ people, gods damn it all.

So why had he lived?

And it broke on him with delirious clarity: the Phoenix. He was alive because the Phoenix wanted it, because there was one thing left he had to do. So many mistakes over the years he could do nothing about, so many right things done for the wrong reasons – but if he could go back to the beginning, and make amends for that one crucial failure -

The next he remembered it was hours later, his fever had broken, and one more charred feather spilled out of his fingers.

“Okay,” he said, his voice rusty from disuse. “Got the message. I'll stay alive the normal way from now.”


	2. Chapter 2

Edgar decided to believe that his brother was alive. He decided to believe, in the face of all contrary evidence, that he would know if something had happened. This was almost certain to be a lie, but sometimes you had to lie to people to stop them from panicking. He turned his full powers of persuasion on himself and decided, for expediency's sake, to believe that they had worked.

He had no such convenient pretext for believing in the survival of his other allies, which, when he allowed himself to feel it, was acutely distressing. But there was not a person on the face of the planet who wasn't distressed, and he was after all an old hand at carrying on while things fell apart.

He didn't remember the first few days after the crash, and accounted that a mercy. Whatever had happened, he'd come out of it with a limp, but nothing worse. He remembered snapping abruptly into lucidity in the ruined atrium of a grand hotel, and telling a group of shocked survivors, “That's not meant as a load-bearing wall. You need to get out before the next quake.”

People listened to him. Not because he was the king – how would they know that if he didn't advertise it? - but because he seemed to have his head on straight. This was the only one of his talents that had ever counted for much.

The thought struck him again with new force while he was poking around an equally ruined train depot: He did not have to tell anyone who he was.

And there might well be practical reasons for concealing his identity. Pulling rank wouldn't help anyone, and might make him a lightning rod for the justified resentment of the common people struggling to understand their new circumstances. Even in the very best case scenario, even if people still generally thought he was decent-if-stupid and were willing to accept his leadership, no one had time to stand on ceremony. He would be obliged to take back his kingdom -

the prospect sounded unappealing; he pretended not to know why -

to take back his kingdom at all hazards. Order would not be imposed without force. And force – the faces of the shocked, grieving, hungry and dispossessed streamed past him – was the last thing anyone needed right now.

That settled it. But, in lieu of His Royal Majesty Edgar R. Figaro I, who would he be in the meantime? Where would he be of most use?

These past ten years he'd tried to strike a balance. One part too-credulous ally of the empire, one part skirt-chasing fop, all style, no substance, no threat to anyone. In privacy he had tinkered with machines and waited for his moment, but in public – he hadn't had occasion to be serious in public since his father's funeral. It was still instinct, in new or uncertain company, to lean on a pretense of ignorance and frivolity. But realistically, a person as stupid as Edgar pretended to be wouldn't make it on his own. Some new mask was in order.

Some people fled the cities – fearing an attack from Kefka, or abandoning their ruined homes to join family in the country, or simply because they saw others doing it. But a contrary tide began to flow from the country back into the towns, as freak storms, emboldened monsters, or common brigands made an isolated existence no more safe. The population was, on average, running around in a panic. In such circumstances no one looked at anyone else too closely, or remembered them once gone. This took away some of the urgency from choosing a new identity. In the meantime Edgar started disposing of the telltales of the old. He had to cut the straps of his armor to get himself out of it; a greenish bruise remained down the right side of his chest where impact had partially caved in his breastplate.

I could very easily have died, he thought. But the lightheadedness passed, and he prised the surviving gemstones out of his pauldrons and cloak pin and bartered them away, bit by bit. He bought plain clothes. Warmer, against the newly chill wind. He started walking north. He came across a carriage that had broken down, and he got the wheel reattached while the owner ran down a chocobo that had slipped the traces. To return the favor, the man let him ride along for a little while. Edgar thought, I could just be a repairman now. At no time on this trip did he provide a name, whether his own or a false one. When the man turned east, Edgar climbed out and resumed walking.

He thought about cutting his hair, but flinched. He had last cut it the night Sabin left Figaro. To do so now would be like going into mourning again, and for the moment, he had decided not to believe he had cause. He took one of the ribbons down, at least, and carried it in his pocket until giving it away to the next pretty girl he met. She stared at him in confusion and nascent disapproval, which felt so exactly like old times that it lifted his spirits for a solid half-hour.

But he was aware, even now, that he was dodging the question.

One evening on what had once been the Doma road he bought, at an extortionate price, a tiny roast fowl. None of his fellow travelers had been willing to part with anything more substantial. He took it away to eat, in a little protected alcove under a rocky overhang where he'd planned to shelter for the night, and then realized he had no utensils. He stared down at the fowl in consternation, hunger warring with the twenty-seven years of decorum that refused to admit he could just tear into it with his hands.

The world was over, and he was worried about dignity, or getting chicken grease on himself. It was absurd. He thought, Well, Sabin got over having manners, so why shouldn't I?

He thought, If Locke were here I would never live this down.

Thoughts of friends likely dead were not conducive to appetite, but Locke would probably also have taken him to task for wasting food, so he did what he could. His next priority – Locke would appreciate this, too – was to trade for a good knife.

*

He was not aware that he had ever decided where he was going. Maybe he hadn't decided. He was gathering information, learning the lay of the land -

as, indeed, there it lay. The desert, huge as ever, though the sky seemed lower to the ground now, dim and purple, robbing the dunes of their familiar gold. Of course this was his destination. It always had been. The desert, grown unfamiliar – and empty.


	3. Chapter 3

Locke had nothing to complain about at this point, aside from getting extravagantly seasick in all quarters of the world. Most people didn't have the wherewithal to travel at all these days, so he should count himself lucky even for that. He'd hunted down old contacts and called in favors from the Returners glory days and from the much less glorious days before. Where that failed, he'd find somebody mounting an expedition to figure out what had happened to such and such town now that the roads were gone and the ocean had inverted itself or whatever. He'd say, Hey, you need one more sword arm? You need a guy who's suspiciously well informed about the cider trade? And at some point the list of places he'd been became its own recommendation. You want news from Zozo? Nikeah? You get three guesses where Thamasa ended up after the dust settled, but you're gonna need ten, this one's wild -

Treasure hunting. Talking to people and chasing rumors and trading this piece of information for that old sheaf of papers, this music box for that key, buying a couple drinks for the right out-of-work professor and saying, Hey, what do you make of these etchings?

Of course, the world was a wreck. _All_ the professors were out of work. The drinks were all both expensive and terrible. There was a lot less bartering and a lot more picking through heaps of abandoned belongings. People were scared, and mourning. Some were immediately suspicious of strangers and decided to hate him as soon as he opened his mouth; others had gotten so desperate for connection they'd give you anything they owned for a five-minute chat. He made rude gestures at the first class of people and tried not to take too much advantage of the second. He was fine. He was, comparatively, doing great.

Sometimes he could hear the Phoenix calling to him. Sometimes he dreamed about the quiet life with Rachel that he should have had, and woke up thinking, Well, we still could.

Sometimes he dreamed of the Blackjack breaking up. Celes thrown down into the sea, still splattered with Kefka's blood, for what little good stabbing him had done. Falling, as they all fell.

“That's too bad,” Edgar said, in the dream, and Locke turned to shout at him, but then stopped, and wondered how he had ever mistaken that bearing for complacency. He knew Edgar better than that. There was a point where you got so scared, the only way through was to pretend everything was hilarious, and Edgar had been looking death in the face, and had not wanted to upset Sabin.

How long had that worked? Had the pretense held up his whole way down, or...

When waking from _these_ dreams, Locke was usually useless for three or four hours. The voice in his head would say, mockingly, “Okay, and what are you doing to fix _that_ part?”

Figaro Castle had vanished from the face of the earth. Whether it had been blown up or knocked over or sunk under the desert again and just stayed there, nobody could tell him, and there was nothing he could do. Vector was a pile of rubble. His friends were gone, and not even their homes remained.

Rachel was his oldest debt, and the only one he could still repay. He couldn't let his attention be divided.

*

Rumor had always put the Phoenix magicite solidly in Imperial possession. Or at least, Gestahl had some kind of rock; some descriptions were consistent with what Locke now knew as magicite, and some sounded like people getting way too excited about carnelian. Locke had this theory, anyway: Gestahl had never had kids. He wasn't worried about a succession, meaning he didn't have any plans for letting go of power in the first place – he wanted to keep it for himself, for a long damn time. So it stood to reason he would have stashed the Phoenix somewhere safe, and left instructions for some loyal toady to go find it and drag him back if he croaked. He'd have had no idea what Kefka was planning, or that there would be no body left to resurrect, and – well, _get fucked_ , you monster, it was a kinder death than you deserved – like to see you show your ugly face in the world you helped ruin. How'd you like to get beaten down like everyone else, knifed for twelve gil and left to rot -

Locke was getting distracted. The Phoenix was on ex-Imperial turf, he was pretty sure. He just had to figure out where it had been before, and where all the major landmasses had ended up, and then how to _get_ to this hidey-hole, if any human could. Easy, right?

(A memory came to him unbidden: Edgar staring in thinly veiled distaste at a jumble of maps and papers. He had tipped Locke off about an estate sale in South Figaro – the deceased had been an “amateur historian,” however the hell you got that distinction, and he'd said some of her papers might be of interest. Locke had grabbed the whole lot on his way to the castle for their next meeting, and was sifting through them on the floor of his usual guest room.

“You could stand to be more systematic,” said Edgar, proving once and for all that, whatever his finer qualities, he did not have the treasure hunter's instinct for following a hunch. Locke shrugged, ate another handful of salted nuts from the bowl on the endtable, and contemplated a map where some bored doodler had gradually transformed the course of the Lete River into the head of a seriously lopsided chocobo. Useful? No. Funny? Yeah, kinda.

Edgar raised his eyebrows skeptically. “Do you even want to succeed?”

Locke had punched him. Edgar had never offered a comment on the Phoenix hunt again.)

Here at the end of the world, out of other options, Locke bought himself a little leather-bound ledger. It was the kind of thing he could have just lifted, in the world before, but it'd be cruel to now. There was so little demand for craft work, and so little access to raw material, and mobs going town to town burning books, saying they were _decadent,_ saying we deserved this fate for trying to understand too much – yeah, okay, so Locke slipped the book binder an extra fifty percent. Plus a note about a relatively well-defended caravan rolling out of here next Thursday, though gods knew if the next town would be any better.

He got some pens. He holed up under a bridge and opened the notebook and thought, Okay, Edgar, we'll try it your way this time – and in a pocket in the inside cover there were ten gil. At the same time he was trying to look out for the book binder, the old guy had been trying to sneak him some extra, too. He laughed, although he could have cried. He thought, Damn, do I really look that lost?

He wrote down everything he knew. In the bag under his shirt, the Phoenix feathers felt warm against his chest, as if his guardian approved the intent.

*

Outside the ruins of an old Imperial outpost a bird straggled along the shoreline. Its feathers were dingy gray, and its long yellow beak lolled open. One of its wings hung to the ground, leaving a wobbly trail in the sand beside the imprints of its feet.

Shorebirds were liars sometimes. They'd fake weakness to lure you away from something they valued. Like they were saying, “I'm easy meat, come get some,” but they'd stay just ahead long enough to get you away from their nest, or their favorite feeding ground, or a cache of treasure. Once you were good and disoriented they'd take flight, perfectly whole. Locke had always respected the hustle.

But this little guy – what could he be protecting? Locke looked at the trail of footprints. They led back along the shore until sand gave way to gravel. Beyond that the land rose up into a black wall of a cliff. If this bird had a nest or a cache back there, he could just sit on it and dive-bomb people who came at it from below. Fancy maneuvers like this were an unnecessary risk.

It occurred to Locke that he had not seen another bird for days. No other birds, no mating, no nest.

The bird came closer. Not like it was trying to trick him, but like it was too out of it to know he was there at all. The two biggest feathers on its bad wing were broken. Blood crusted its shoulder. It wasn't faking anything. It couldn't fly, and within a day or two it would starve. Its third eyelid flickered open and shut at random, its eye flashing white and yellow, white and black.

Before he even knew what he'd decided to do, Locke had the poor little bastard tucked under his arm, holding the bad wing immobile against its side. It windmilled its feet in feeble irritation and darted its neck out like a snake, trying to bite something or anything, but its beak closed on empty air. He could feel its pulse against his side – so powerful for such a small heart, and so inhumanly fast. It was fever-hot.

(It'd be worse if it weren't. Birds ran hot, a stablehand had told him one day, when he asked why Figaro's chocobo barn always felt like a blast furnace.)

The bird fought him all the way back up the shore. He'd left his increasingly worn-out tent and rapidly vanishing supplies up at the edges of the pine forest. He had only come down here to look around. The walk felt weeks long. His passenger kept trying to gouge chunks out of him.

“Stop that,” he said, “I'm here to help,” but if it actually did stop struggling it could only mean it was dead. Even now he could feel its protests getting weaker and weaker, and his eyes stung at the futility of it all. “Quit wasting your strength, little guy. It'll be okay, but you have to trust me.”

It was still alive when he found his camp. He wrestled it into a drawstring bag, leaving only its head exposed, and felt sick at how little it was able to resist him. He went through his medicine stash with shaking hands. What was the potion dosage for a seagull? They were a lot smaller than humans, but they ate a lot of complete trash, stuff went through them fast, they were probably pretty hard to poison -

The pouch of spent Phoenix feathers felt warm under his shirt. Like a reminder of all the Espers had given them. Gods dammit, he thought, I could have just done magic on this all along.

He held the shape of a spell in his mind, the way the magicite had whispered it to him. He couldn't do it the way the Espers did – it was like they built their magic out of colors a human couldn't quite see, or sounds he couldn't hear – but sometimes this imperfect copy was just enough.

“Go to sleep,” he told the bird, and let the spell go. The bird went still. If it died now, it would be painless. But he took it out of the bag and felt its chest, and for now, its heart still beat.

Then he kinda sat there for a while, half laughing and half sobbing. This was ridiculous. The hell was he doing? The bird was gonna die and then he'd be all messed up about it for a week. Should've walked away. Should've just put it out of its misery. Easy meat. Wild animals didn't _want_ to be rescued.

Some people didn't, either. Never stopped him before.

Little guy wasn't getting anywhere fast with that damaged wing, even if it survived the night. Would the feathers grow back on their own, or was this a “wait for molting season and pray” type of situation? When was molting season? What season was it now? Was anything in nature going to go the way it should this year, or ever again?

He tried to frame a healing spell in his mind, and felt it fizzle out. He sighed, dried his eyes, and forced a few drops of potion down the bird's open beak. It couldn't make anything worse. Then he tucked the gull back into the bag so that when it woke – if it woke – it couldn't hurt itself again or wander off. He put some dried meat on the ground within reach of its beak. He wondered if it would eat nuts, figured it didn't have the beak to get into them, and spent way too much time smashing his reserve of tree nuts open between two rocks and leaving the nut meat piled up in front of the bird. Night fell; his patient didn't wake up; he slipped up and accidentally brought one of the rocks down on his own hand, and thought, Fuck, I should probably call it a day. He wasn't sure when he had last slept.

The potion was already open anyway, and they didn't keep long after they'd been exposed to air. He popped the cork back out, raised the bottle toward the dying bird in a miserable little salute, and took a swig for himself, for his stupid bruised fingers and sleepless nights.

A voice in the back of his head said, “You shouldn't waste medicine like this. Who knows if you'll ever get any more? If you'd stop throwing everything away on lost causes, maybe you'd stop losing everyone.”

“Shut up,” he said, aloud, too tired to understand he was talking to himself.

*

The bird lived. The bird never liked him, but it knew where the food was coming from. When he let it out of the bag it hung around, making clumsy attempts to distract him and steal all his stuff.

He spent days on that beach, with that bird, finding it food and dodging when it tried to bite him. This bird is an asshole, he thought. For some reason this discovery made him happier than anything had in weeks.

The potion had done something; the damaged feathers had fallen out, and new ones were coming in out of season. I've saved a life, Locke thought. I've saved the life of a stupid feather-brained thief who's never gonna thank me. He had to stop himself there; if he let the emotion overcome him, the bird would take this chance to rip out all his tent pegs.

One night in a spirit of camaraderie he tied a spare bandana around the bird's chest. The next morning it bit a chunk out of his ear and flew away.

He watched it rise unsteadily into the air and wished it a long and dishonest career.

“See?” he told that skeptical voice within himself. “There are no lost causes.” It didn't answer.

*

He dreamed of Rachel, plummeting through the air and then spreading ash-gray wings – not falling at all, but pulling up out of a dive. She shot up into dazzling sunlight. She had always been exactly this beautiful.

He stood watching her from below, as chunks of wood and machinery plummeted to earth around him. He wanted to hide his face. But no. Not if it cost him this view for one instant.

*

In the morning he said to the empty sky: “I've been alone too long, right? That's what this means. It's too long since I talked to anyone who didn't have a beak.”

*

In the houses of the wealthy, cooks had fallen far enough to start frying old sourdough in butter and calling this some kinda “rustic breakfast.” The poor – y'know, the actual rustics – didn't have butter. Good to know that even after the end of the world, Jidoor was the worst place in it.

He double-checked the address on the flyer he had folded into his ledger. THE GATHERING STORM, it said: ART AND ARTIFACTS OF THE LATE GESTAHLIAN EMPIRE. LIMITED EXHIBITION. Heard about it from a woman in South Figaro, an occasional con artist he knew from before. She said she'd tried to hire on as a guard but her nosing around the storage room had made the sponsors uncomfortable. But what she'd gotten a look at before they'd thrown her out had looked legit.

“Good luck,” she'd told him. “No offense, but if even I wasn't charming enough, I don't see how you're gonna pull it off.” It had seemed like a weird thing to say at the time. He'd thought, I'm _plenty_ charming, just watch me.

But he'd had to do some costume work to be able to walk into the noble quarter, and he'd had to shave for the first time in ages, and for that he'd had to look in a mirror. He had seen how much flesh he had lost in his face, and the knot of scar tissue around the hole in his left ear. He looked like hell. 

He must have been a different person, back when he'd come to Kohlingen. If he'd been this janked-up piece of work he'd have never gotten to speak to Rachel at all.

And she wouldn't have fallen, and with nothing to remember, she wouldn't have forgotten him, and when she and her family died it wouldn't have meant anything more to him than any other Imperial raid. He'd probably have never joined the Returners. He wouldn't have dragged Terra along to talk to the Espers and accidentally hand Kefka the keys to godhood.

So yeah, fuck Jidoor's upper crust for walling themselves off in relative luxury while commoners starved, and also fuck them for making him think about all this.

He turned down a side street that would take him around the back of the exhibition gallery. The front was all columns and grandeur, but the back was just a flat gray slab with a couple scraggly trees wilting by the delivery entrance. Nothing he could grab on the way down if he had to go out a window. That awning would tear before it took his weight. He squinted upward. The streets were too wide in this part of town for an easy escape roof-to-roof, but there was enough random architectural bullshit going on up there that he could probably find a hiding place if he had to, just hunker down and wait out whatever happened. If he'd had time to plan ahead he could've stashed some rope up there. Couple wooden boards maybe. Ah, well, it kept things interesting.

He slipped into the delivery entrance, head down, hands in pockets, and wound his way through service passages until he got to the coat check. He summoned his best air of “I'm totally supposed to be here, I'm Mr. Fancy Britches himself, questioning me is the dumbest move you'll make all day” - basically, a really unflattering Edgar impression. Like if you gave Edgar's mannerisms to the worst person imaginable. This was a fun one, but it was more fun when the man himself was around to be annoyed at it. Those days were gone. 

Anyway. He slid over from the staff side to the patron side and waited for a big enough group to enter that he could tag along behind them.

Then got so pissed off he almost left right away. Bastards had hors d'oeuvres. Outside in the city the aqueduct was full of slime, every poor family's kitchen garden had been torn apart by bugs, and these guys were doing decorative things to boiled eggs. Those were perfectly good greens just sitting around garnishing plates – people could've _eaten_ those, what business did this stupid gallery have buying them all up out of the mouths of -

No. Eyes on the prize. This was not his problem to solve, not right now. He was here for the Phoenix. Picking a fight now did nothing for Rachel.

(Would she be happy to see him, knowing he had walked away? Was he still anyone she would recognize?)

_Anyway._ The other weird thing was that the guests were covering their faces, with veils or domino masks or big floppy hats. Okay, so any buying was supposed to be anonymous – not a problem. He was here as a proxy, he decided, and cranked up the snotty attitude. After all, the only people more status-conscious than the rich were their most loyal commoner hangers-on. He was here representing some fancy lady thinking about adding to her collection. She deferred completely to his judgment on art, because he was some kind of expert or something. For fun, he imagined that his client was Celes, who barely had a concept of art in the first place.

He thought of Celes, not the way he'd seen her last, but the way she'd looked studying the libretto, trying to pretend she still wasn't in earnest. Like it was all still means to ends, like she didn't get it, like she wasn't going to try to sell this thing.

Locke told himself, Knock it off, you have a job to do.

He strolled around the edges of the room, doing his best to look officious and self-important. If anyone was rude enough to ask, he planned to claim he'd suffered a wasting disease. People like this hated sickness, and liked pretending it didn't exist. They wouldn't want to pry, and they'd give him plenty of space. And strange as it was to say, space was a thing he could use. He hadn't seen this many people in one place in a long time. It was humid in the main gallery, and – loud, in a way that most places weren't loud anymore.He'd told himself that he missed the bustle, but now he found it just made him uneasy. Were people still _allowed_ to congregate like this?

These people, in velvet and lace, with their voices echoing off polished hardwood floors and bright marble walls – he had to fight down the urge to touch his mangled ear – would they ever lose sleep over a dying bird? Did they understand how _big_ any one life was? Had to be two hundred guests in this building, not to mention the staff. A good two hundred fifty lives. What the fuck. Had he ever understood that much? Before?

He was here for the Phoenix. For Rachel. Understand later, he told himself. Right now you gotta sell the attitude.

He looked at a case of tacky jewelry with variations on the Imperial crest. He looked at some fancy tableware. And they had the nerve to call these “artifacts.” On a rack in one corner someone had actually scraped some of old Gestahl's propaganda posters off of a wall somewhere and had them mounted for framing. Take this shit out back and burn it, he wanted to say, but had to stay in character. So he said primly to the older guy in the rust-colored coat currently flipping through them, “This is in poor taste, don't you think?”

“Not at all,” the man said, and pulled a sample out of the rack to examine it. The artist had done their best to make Gestahl look young and vital and less jowly, and they'd missed the mark; this guy staring heroically off into the distance didn't look like the Emperor, but wasn't enough unlike him to be good-looking. “It's a reminder of disaster averted. If the Empire hadn't collapsed when it did, we'd be living under its rule right now. The current unrest is upsetting, but it will die down.”

Fuck off out of here with all that, Locke thought, but instead said, “Ah, you were lucky enough not to lose anyone to the war? My heartfelt congratulations.”

The man gave him a sharp look from under his gray half-mask. “Your pardon - _what_ house do you represent, again?”

Locke gave him a technically correct but highly sarcastic bow, moved to intercept a waiter circulating with flutes of white wine, and just didn't go back to answer the question.

The wine was sour and flat and had this weird metallic tang and he'd always been more of a beer guy anyway. He took some consolation in knowing all these rich ghouls had to drink this too, and pretend it was as good as they were used to, and convince themselves they were having a grand goddamn time. A disaster averted? The current _unrest?_ Was that how they were spinning this?

They were just as scared as anyone. They were dealing as best they knew how. He couldn't summon any sympathy. But he made himself finish the wine slowly, less like a guy using it to take the edge off a simmering rage. He was sure he'd been better at this part, once.

His talisman, the bag of Phoenix ash still concealed under this stuffy secondhand dress shirt, was cold and inert. Of course you couldn't expect a dead bird to talk you through this kind of bullshit. He'd brought it all the same, wanting to show it he was serious. 

He _was_ serious. He felt a little steadier after thinking about it. This room was all kitsch; if he was going to find any clues, they'd be in something more personal to the Imperial family. He moved deeper into the gallery, passing a wall of battle paintings claiming to show the first decisive victories of the Magitek Knights.

“Those are mass-produced, you know,” he told a teenage girl looking at The Conquest of Tzen. She wore a black mask patterned with purple butterflies, and underneath it her eyes almost vanished in a lake of blue eye shadow. She frowned at him skeptically. “It's true. A designer prints off some paint-by-numbers instructions and they have a whole factory of workers churning them out. You can tell by the brushwork.” He pointed to a spot at random in the painting's sooty sky. “Amateurish,” he scoffed. “No artistic feeling at all. But people let themselves be taken in so easily.”

She looked back at the painting in disgust; he couldn't tell if he'd actually convinced her or if she was just being your typical snotty kid. Whatever. He should probably get to the main event before he made too many waves. He was on edge. He wasn't as good at this as he used to be. He wanted to plunge on ahead to the next room, but he made himself stroll, instead, like he was in no hurry. Like everything mattered just as little as these fancy fucks thought it did.

He walked down a hall with a bunch of small side galleries, and peered into each without sensing anything. But at the end of that hall was one last room, and in that room there was just the one painting. Even if the Phoenix had nothing to tell him, you didn't get to be a treasure hunter for this long without learning to take a hint.

It was a giant portrait of Gestahl. And this one actually looked like him, which inclined Locke to think that, whatever the artist's technical achievement, it was a shit painting. At triple life size the old bastard's subtle knowing smile was nauseating. There was a glint in those eyes that made your skin crawl.

He heard footsteps approaching from behind. “Magnetic, isn't it?” said a voice over his shoulder, and Locke had time to prepare himself with a suitably haughty expression as he looked back. He was addressed by a small, neat, gray-haired man all in black, and undisguised. Okay. So one of the sponsors, then? Or a honcho at this gallery? While Locke did the math, the stranger went on: “There's something so compelling about evil. A charisma, almost, that we find ourselves subject to almost against our will.”

“And that's what this show is about?” Locke said. “Thinking atrocity is stylish?”

With shocking candor the man said, “If that were my thesis, I'd have more portraits of Kefka Pallazzo.”

Locke thought, You motherfucker. Instead he said, “Oh, yeah. Light of Judgment's real sexy stuff.” Which was probably not any more diplomatic. 

“Young man,” said the art gallery bigwig, “who are you?”

“I'm searching for rare treasures on behalf of a great lady,” he said. Wasn't even a lie.

“Yes,” the man said, with a small smile, and there was a momentary glint in his eyes that matched that in Gestahl's portrait, pinning Locke between them. “But I wonder what you were doing before you received that commission, hm?”

Locke relaxed. Everything had suddenly become so simple. There was always this moment, right before things went off the rails, right as the game changed on you: this moment of clarity where you realized, Okay, the time for careful maneuvers is over, I'm about to start some shit. Like hanging, just for an instant, in midair.

“Look, pal,” he said, dropping all those upper-class affectations and shifting into a stance that was not _quite_ for fighting, and not quite a threat, _yet._ “We can shake hands, and I can get out of here, and get back to it. That option's still on the table.”

Don't take it, he thought. I could use some excitement.

He had seen it, in the last moment before he turned his back on Gestahl. Hidden against the background of the emperor's lap robe, in spidery brush strokes just above the inside edge of the frame, the painting said: “We will meet again where the mountains form a star.”

Gallery security arrived, in the form of three big guys in suits, all way better-fed than anyone had a right to be at present, and Locke thought, Here we go. The Phoenix's blessing was with him. It wasn't like he could die here.

The old guy was saying something about having Locke escorted to a holding cell; Locke was not listening. Where the mountains form a star. He thought with regret of Figaro Castle's map room, where he could have solved this in ten second flat, if the world was still the shape it used to be, and if the castle hadn't been eaten by the sand. So he had some more research to do. Somebody at the University of Narshe had been talking about doing a survey -

The old guy stopped talking and made some kinda gesture. Locke had completely tuned him out by now. But one of the security guys grabbed Locke's shoulder.

“I'll pass, thanks,” he said. “Places to be.” He twisted away and ran for it.

He probably would've gotten away clean, if he hadn't stopped to slam a knife through the portrait's left eye.


	4. Chapter 4

A kerchief was an eminently practical investment under the circumstances. The sky was overcast most days, so you might not feel the threat of sunburn - but spend enough time outside and the indirect glare would cook you, slowly but surely. Edgar was outdoors a lot more than had been his custom when he was king, and a burnt scalp was a lesson anyone only needed once.

The merchant's offerings were all a bit dingy, second- or third-hand, or water-damaged, or factory rejects, or all of the above. But this was good. It would contribute to a certain air of the downtrodden rake. "Circumstances have spat on me, but I'm still going to conduct myself with panache," or - well, probably smaller words than that. He should be more careful about slipping into a register too lofty for his ostensible situation. He haggled for a couple of misprint bandanas with conflicting patterns and thought, My, how the tables have turned – and all at once was hit with the sick hopelessness he generally had no time for. Locke was dead.

I'm a different kind of thief, he thought, abruptly, I can't just rip off another man's style, and selected a hat instead.

He continued poking through this disreputable assortment for anything else that might add to his disguise. His right leg gave him a twinge as he moved from one scrap heap to the next. Whatever he'd managed to do to himself in that black hole of memory around the crash, the damage, and the limp, seemed to be permanent. He wondered occasionally how it had happened, but always decided he was better off not knowing.

One oddity, among all these cast-offs – an irregularly shaped piece of blue silk, embroidered white and gold, but half the stitches torn out. For himself, these days he made an effort to avoid wearing any blues or golds too close to those of Figaro heraldry, but there was nothing wrong with looking. He lifted it out of the pile – and kept lifting, as it unfolded to a length of about six feet. He had seen this before. This was part of a chocobo's caparison, and more specifically...

He looked over at the merchant, eyebrows raised in question. Let _him_ explain it.

“Ah, yes,” said the merchant, “my daughter found a bird riderless in the desert. We think it was Figaro scout corps. Rider must've died in the riots, and the poor thing was just trying to go home.” Aren't we all, Edgar thought. “Couldn't find home, so it was running around half-starved and out of its mind.” Aren't we all.

It was not an implausible story, as far as it went. It was also possible the scout had been subject to foul play. Edgar frowned, studying the caparison and the merchant by turns, and wondered, Did you murder one of my men?

Instead he asked, “When was this?”

The merchant scratched at his beard. An oddity in these times – it looked like a beard he had actually cultivated on purpose, as opposed to the vast majority of men now going around with some level of apocalypse scruff. “Don't remember exactly. Two or three weeks?”

Edgar pretend to study the cloth for any more defects beyond the obvious. He said, “You mentioned a daughter...”

The merchant laughed. “She's not interested in your type.”

Damn. That had been the wrong angle. Then again, he'd been vague enough about his intentions that maybe it wouldn't register as nosing around. Maybe he could still risk... “Have you sold that bird yet?”

*

The bird was a young hen, which was unusual in scout service – something about size dimorphism; Edgar had learned the reason as a child, but had not bothered to retain such information once the whole kingdom was dumped in his lap. He had too many other things to think about, and he had people for that.

Well, he didn't have people now. He had a nervous chocobo sizing him up with one eye and then the other, her talons leaving long drag marks in the dust of the bazaar.

“I see we've gotten off to a bad start,” he said, and she snapped her beak at him. She had reason to be uneasy. On top of everything else she'd endured, when Edgar had first tried to mount up, his bad leg had buckled under him. He'd fallen into her, and his reflexive clawing at the saddle straps had almost dragged her down. Mortifying.

He'd made better first impressions. He also had to worry, now, that if he got out into the desert alone with this animal he might not be able to fend for himself.

“I just want to try one experiment,” he said. It felt foolish, speaking complete sentences to an inarticulate animal, but he had never known how you were _supposed_ to talk to them. He had learned enough to get from place to place and look elegant in the saddle, and that was the extent of it. Sabin had been the natural. Animals _liked_ Sabin. “One quick trial, and if it works, we're home. If it doesn't, I'll find another safe place for you to stay. Either way, you won't have to put up with me for long. Let's at least not be enemies.”

She blinked at him.

A fragment of an old lecture drifted up out of memory. “A chocobo is a herd animal at heart,” the stablemaster was saying. Sabin was listening attentively; Edgar was staring out the window into a brilliant blue sky and plotting how to weasel out of that afternoon's Religious Studies lesson. “They can get feisty, and they may try to test your limits. But they like to know who's in charge. Be calm, and be decisive, and that's half the battle.”

In the present day the sky was green, and the hen lowered her head and let him approach. He kept saying reasonable things to her for as long as he could think of any, then fell back on saying inane things in a reasonable tone of voice, and by then he had gotten a good hold of the reins and led her over to a box he could use for a mounting block.

He thought, I'd better hope there are boxes around whenever I want to get down, and climbed on, and steered for the castle's last known location. It wouldn't be there, of course. But maybe once within a certain distance, the bird's homing instincts could guide them the rest of the way. Unlikely, but not impossible, and it could be done without major loss of time. And on the off chance it worked, if it really _was_ this simple, it'd save him the rather more Baroque complications of his initial plan.

He was attacked two hours into the ride. This didn't surprise him.

Two riders converged on him from the dunes ahead. He aimed his mount to shoot through the gap, but she didn't trust him enough and balked, onto a collision course with the right-hand rider. He wouldn't be able to use any of his more interesting weapons without completely panicking his steed, so – sword. He pulled the blade free, almost lost balance – but struck out as the distance closed. His attacker's short sword rang against his with a jarring impact and bounced off, and they were past each other.

Then he was in the clear, for a few seconds while the attackers – yellow head scarf on the left, white on the right – whirled around for another go.

He couldn't take them both at once, but which one went first didn't matter. He angled leftward across Yellow's path. Subtly at first. One second... Two... He steepened the angle to intercept. White went sailing wide of him on the right. He was nearly side-on to Yellow. His chocobo made a panicked leap out of the way – and he brought her head around smartly as Yellow passed by.

“Good girl,” he muttered, and closed in.

He was behind Yellow and to the left – and Yellow was holding his sword in his right hand, defenseless at this angle. White was coming around again. Edgar would prefer someone alive to answer questions, but right now mercy would take more finesse than he had time for. 

Edgar's chocobo surged forward, and brought his sword down and across. With the bird's weight behind the blow, the blade bit deep into Yellow's shoulder. With a cry Yellow dropped his sword and clapped his right hand over the wound. Three or four strides and he toppled out of the saddle. Maybe Yellow would bleed to death, maybe merely lose that arm. Edgar had been aiming for his neck,and a cleaner kill, but – mounted combat was such a terrible archaism. The threat was gone regardless. Edgar turned away and left him, and raised his bloody sword to meet White.

As White bore down he made split-second calculations. His mount was faster and more maneuverable, assuming she'd answer to any given command; this could not be safely assumed. White was holding his sword awfully high.

They closed in. White's sword began to swing downward, in a too-dramatic arc that partially lifted White out of the saddle. Edgar did the thing you were not supposed to do in jousts, and dodged.

Meeting no resistance, White was left off-balance. Edgar wheeled his chocobo around to White's off side, sword held low, and sliced through the girth of White's saddle.

White fell into the sand; his chocobo shot off like a rocket without him. Luckily he managed not to skewer himself on his own sword, or Edgar would never have gotten any answers.

Edgar reined his chocobo into a halt and patted her neck. “Excellently done, my lady. What have I been telling you? We can't forget our training just because everyone's gone.”

“Kweh,” she said, which he took to denote a certain growing esteem.

He wiped his sword off on the saddle blanket and sheathed it, then walked her a little closer to the fallen White. Silently entreating the bird not to break his arm, he looped the reins around his elbow and took out the crossbow.

White had risen to a kneel on the rough stone, and he – no. _She._ White was a woman. Under the headscarf she had the same heavy brows and sharp nose as the silk merchant in town, but they suited her – she was really quite striking, and if she were at all interested in men and hadn't just tried to run him down he could imagine he'd enjoy passing the time of day with her. Alas. He trained his crossbow on her throat. He said, calmly, “What did you do to my scout?”

“What?”

“This bird is property of the Kingdom of Figaro. Did you and your father really happen to find it wandering at random? Or is there some intermediate step you left out of that story?” She didn't answer. “Think carefully. It's a poor token of your honesty that you tried to kill me as soon as I was gone. What pressing reason could you have for wanting me shut up, I wonder?”

“Never saw a scout,” she said, and spat blood into the sand. “Found the bird running around crazy, like Dad told you. No rider.” She shook her head. “Let me go and I'll say I lost you.”

“Why the attack, then?”

The woman smiled sarcastically. “Reward out for you, isn't there?” She gave him a mocking bow. “Your Majesty.”

*

He studied his reflection in a cracked shopfront window. He looked dingy and exhausted, the same as everyone else. But there must be something he was doing wrong – some signal he was giving off, some secret aristocratic telltale.

But how would I ever spot it? he thought, sourly. How many commoners do I even know, that I'd be able to act like one?

He mentally ran down the list of his old allies. All high-ranking military or else such oddball cases that class was not the distinguishing factor – Gau, for instance, wasn't of any noble extraction, but at the thought of using him as a template Edgar almost laughed aloud.

There was, of course...

No. He made an attempt, but Locke's casually insolent bearing came off completely different from someone with Edgar's height, or Edgar's breadth of shoulder; Edgar didn't have the same quick fluidity of motion; Edgar's bad leg wouldn't take the weight of that much artful slouching anyway. He sighed and moved on, and felt foolish for having tried.

The idea of cutting his hair occurred to him again, but he dismissed it out of hand. This was a settled point. He must have made that decision for a good reason; he would not be examining it further. Dye wasn't out of the question, though it took some experimenting.

*

He traveled south again. He rarely noticed any significant pain from his leg – it tended to intrude itself on his consciousness for a few moments after waking up, or when he was first trying to fall asleep, but he could put that aside easily enough. The principal inconvenience was that it simply didn't work as well as it should. The knee joint was annoyingly fickle. It would lock up with little warning, or lose range of motion as the day wore on. It made him slow and clumsy at a time when he needed to look capable. These were mechanical problems, and in moments of frustration he thought, I could've built myself a better leg than this. But at least it didn't hurt – usually – or at least the discomfort could be safely shunted to back of mind.

Usually. That autumn was a rainy one, and on damp days a leaden throbbing radiated up his thigh bone. It made him feel old. It made him miss the desert.

Then the skies would clear, and he'd laugh at himself for becoming such a mopey bastard, and stop thinking about it entirely.

*

It had been days before anyone in town would even speak to him; the citizenry was no friendlier than they'd been before the apocalypse. Seeing the increasingly squalid and dangerous conditions they lived in, his first impulse had been to come in with material assistance, start fixing things, improve security – but they wouldn't trust such high-handed charity. However it rankled, he'd kept his head down at first. Fended off an attempted mugging. Bought a few rounds for strangers, and then, after sussing out a little more of everyone's gang affiliations, bought rounds only for a specific subset of those strangers. Finally someone talked.

“Big ideas,” the man grunted, when Edgar explained what he had in mind. The man was a former railway engineer whose erstwhile employers in Nikeah had refused to compensate him for injury after an engine explosion he had barely survived, and had dismissed him a few weeks into his recovery. After all, he was missing an arm and had already been present for one disaster, and who needed that kind of trouble? Over the ensuing five or ten years he had slowly drifted downward, from beggary, to grifting, to one burglary that had gone horribly wrong, until he had finally fetched up here in Zozo as a receiver of stolen goods.

(Edgar had not been able to determine where the fault lay for the explosion, and couldn't ask too many questions, which galled him. The man was hard done by regardless, but he wanted to _know._ )

“Big ideas,” the fence repeated, thoughtful. “Be interesting to see if they pay.”

“They will,” said Edgar. “I know what I'm doing.” He gave the man a slip of paper and a handful of gil. “If you know anyone who may be interested, send 'em my way.”

The man read the address and raised his eyebrows. “Lot of stairs for someone with a bum leg. Gets slippery up there. Don't have an accident.”

An expression of goodwill, or a threat? No matter. Edgar had decided to set up shop in the top floor of the Sophia, Zozo's second-tallest residential tower. It had a certain status; it was named after a woman, always a plus; and it had had an elevator, installed in some more optimistic time, which had gone out of service before Edgar was even born. It had been surprisingly simple to fix, but for strategic purposes, he'd be keeping that development to himself a while.

*

The moon over Zozo looked huge and diseased. Gerad was making his first big play.

He stood in front of a plain brick wall. Its plainness alone should have given it away as a location of some significance; everywhere else in the city was begrimed with condensation, sprouting green stuff through the mortar, and wearing graffiti generations thick. This was different – all of a piece, the bricks a one-layer facade, and constructed to resist wear. He had tried taking a chunk out of one with a knife, and had been unsuccessful. This suggested that the few scuffs and irregularities present must have been put there deliberately, and to some purpose. 

He addressed the six people who had bothered to turn up at his invitation, and any passersby wondering what the fuss was about: “In just a few more minutes, the vault of the so-called Thief Lord Rodolfo will open up for the first time since his decease, fifteen years ago. As thanks for attending my little party, each of you can enter the vault and walk out with as much as you can carry. And, if you'd like, you can leave. No questions asked. No hard feelings. But if that doesn't satisfy you... If you intend to stick around and see what comes next... Then you concede that, as of today, I run this show.”

There was a combination lock on the door around the corner, of the kind that had been newfangled twenty years ago. Of course people had tried to crack it; this was Zozo. So why had they met with so little success?

“This is a combination lock in more than one sense of the word. Around the corner is a dial on which the entrant must select the right sequence of numbers – the combination. But that's only step one. It acts in concert with a mechanism behind this wall.” He patted the slightly too smooth brick surface behind him. “When the combination is entered, a timer starts ticking down thirty seconds. If another combination isn't entered into this wall during that interval, the lock resets, and the combination is shuffled to another entry on a list of preset alternatives. With trial and error, it would be possible to determine what all those alternatives are – certainly quicker than running down every possible string of numbers. But personally, I don't have that kind of time.”

He was starting to lose the group's interest. Had he gone too in-depth? A chronic problem. And now that he'd accidentally established Gerad as a man prone to technical rambling, he'd have to come up with some plausible justification in his fictitious past. But that was for later. “You three,” he said, pointing out individuals of whom only one was a plant, “I want you to depress a few sections of this wall that I'll point out to you. Whatever else you may hear or feel, don't let up until I say so.” The three exchanged dubious glances. “Oh, sorry,” said Edgar, “do you hate money? I'll find someone else.” With a show of skepticism, his plant stepped up, and after a few seconds the other two followed. Sometimes crude tools were the most effective.

He positioned them along the wall and showed them which bricks to lean on. It was interesting, what this whole complicated song-and-dance said about this erstwhile Thief Lord; he must've had at least two trusted lieutenants, and he wouldn't have been able to access his own treasure without them. Friendship was a beautiful thing, apparently. It was convenient for Edgar's purposes, too. If he'd gotten in alone, it would have been impressive, but it would not have given his prospective crew the same pride of ownership. If a break-in was something one could own.

The mechanism now partially engaged by his accomplices, it offered no interference when he went around the corner and drilled out the whole lock cylinder. There was a lot of squealing metal; there was no trivial amount of smoke; for a moment an ominous clicking and thumping inside the wall suggested the clockwork within might grind right over the blocks inserted by his lovely assistants. Someone screamed to keep it down; someone started throwing rocks from a window across the street; random idlers joined the party to ask what the hell was going on, and were met mostly with shrugs. But then it was done. The lock fell out onto the paving stones. Edgar powered off the drill.

“All right,” he said, “come around to this side.” He pulled open the door. The rainy gray evening light of Zozo didn't penetrate far into the room, but he'd brought a lantern. In the moment it took to light it, four or five thieves had rushed in ahead of him. Such initiative. He held the light up, and surveyed the room. His first treasure hunt. He pointedly did not wonder what any other treasure hunters of his acquaintance would make of it.

Almost immediately the sight depressed him. Zozo was humid, and this vault wasn't well-sealed; those silk hangings and Doman folding screens showed clear water damage and the plush cushions of these antique chairs were spotted with mold. Was that a harpsichord? Who the hell stole an entire harpsichord and stored it without climate control? There were piles of tarnished silver and sculptured candlesticks heavy with verdigris. There were two immense jewelry boxes, their velvet-lined interiors crumbling to dust and dumping rings and necklaces to the floor at a touch.

And this had been a hoard worth protecting so stringently, fifteen years ago? Strange how things lost value -

They had apparently not lost value to his followers, who were throwing open cabinets and drawers to disgorge gold and jewels onto the floor and sifting through these artifacts like the experienced appraisers they were. He conceded that he was wrong. He had grown up in such opulence that he had no sense of scale – just how much of a difference a few hundred gil could make to a person. He thought back to when he'd sold off his things after the crash, and realized he could have asked a much higher price, and was glad that he hadn't. He could afford to be taken advantage of, now and then.

But – no. Something still didn't seem right. Something seemed missing, somehow.

Edgar paced the perimeter of the room, watching men, women, and one enterprising child load down pockets and waterproof bags with treasure. It was enough. He'd impressed them, he was sure, and some number of them would be willing to listen to him for some future enterprise in hopes of another big payout. Why risk that? Why make any additional commitments he couldn't guarantee?

“Hey Chief!” A woman called out. “Why the face? Don't you want any of this?” And, grinning, pulled open her vest to show off a string of twice-stolen sapphires glittering against – honesty compelled him to admit it was a truly magnificent decolletage. Stupendous. For a dizzying moment he tried to remember if Gerad was also an incorrigible womanizer – had he ever decided? - but then he gave up.

“Please,” he said, grinning back at her, “it's Gerad. Especially to ladies.” She buttoned up her vest with a laugh and turned away to resume plundering.

It took longer than he would've liked to banish that image from his mind's eye – the graceful curve of her throat, and good gods, those _breasts_. It had been at least two months since he had felt the touch of another human being, but this was unpleasant to reflect on, so he stopped reflecting. There was a puzzle here, and that was more important – why was he so convinced that this wasn't the full extent of the cache?

“This isn't it,” he said suddenly. “He wouldn't store everything in a vault he couldn't access alone.”

“Where's the rest, then?” someone called out.

“Keep looting. I'm working on it.”

*  
By the end of the evening he'd developed a suspicion. He had told his ragtag band – at that time numbering eighteen – to come to the top floor of the Sophia in seven days and he'd tell them everything. Unfortunately, it'd only taken three days to confirm his suspicion, and there had followed four rather annoying days of sitting on his hands. He reminded himself that pacing was an important part of any drama. He reminded himself that he had ample experience at biding his time.

Now at last it was the appointed night. No one had seen him enter the building. No one had seen him climb the external staircase, where approximately twenty-five miscellaneous ne'er-do-wells were presently lounging around smoking damp, malodorous cigarettes. Perhaps some had been impressed by last week's showing. Other potential motivations included boredom, a desire to watch an upstart fail, or intent to rob him. They were here in any case, and he could work with that.

“So good of you all to come,” he said, walking out onto the stairway, and a few of the less jaded of his prospective gang members started. Gratifying. He knew he'd kept the elevator secret for a reason. “I have some good news, and then I have a proposal.”

“Did you find another stash?” a man spoke up.

“No,” Edgar said lightly. Pause for effect. Confused muttering from the audience. “I found four. Surely you gentlemen – and ladies,” he added with a half bow to two young women sitting precariously on the railing. “Surely you remember the clock vault. And the vault I showed you last week. Does that stir any associations? Does it make you think 'that's odd, why _is_ this town so full of defunct clockwork?' My friends, I don't want to state the obvious, but it turns out... things stop working if you strip them for parts and jam the casing full of gold dust. Hell, either step alone would do it, but...”

He lobbed a small velvet bag underhand to a man in a ratty purple jacket. Instantly all eyes were on Purple Jacket Man as he moved underneath one of the stairwell's external gas lights and pulled the bag open. He peered inside a moment, then looked up at the crowd and said cautiously, “It looks legit...”

There was a hush, and then everyone started talking at once. One of the women on the railing punched the other in the shoulder from sheer excitement, and both almost fell off.

Edgar let the buzz of speculation run its course a few seconds, then held up a hand for quiet. “Lots more where that came from. I'm hoping to enlist some help in retrieving it all. That's step one.”

“Only step one?” said somebody, right on cue.

“Step two is we convert it to something negotiable. The world has changed. People can't eat gems, and gold makes terrible tools. There's no guarantee money for its own sake will be accepted anywhere – priorities have shifted. I say this not to be discouraging, but to promise you that we will find some fools to scam out of much more useful trading supplies. All of which is a boring but necessary preamble to step three.”

The fact was he had not chosen Purple Jacket Man for that bit of crowd work at random. The fellow's name was Radim, and that name was on a very short list. As King of Figaro, a lifetime ago, Edgar had presided over the sentencing of a number of criminals, but there were five who particularly interested him now. He had been prepared to keep coming up with public displays of criminal enterprise until at least one of those five showed up. This part was pivotal. It was also the final test of his disguise; Radim had seen the king that day, and might have glimpsed him again on inspections of the prison level.

But it was Gerad standing under the gas light, asking a fellow robber, “How would you like another crack at the Figaro job?”

*

Only once, in all the weeks of planning, did anyone ask Gerad who he had been before. Anyone could fall on hard times, of course, but his specialized knowledge and needlessly lofty vocabulary kept tipping people off that he had fallen farther than most.

“I worked in security,” he said, and for once let his expression turn somber. “It ended badly. Don't ask me again.”

This spared him the trouble of having to extemporize a back story. People were free to assume that he was an extremely private person and that whatever had happened to him had been suitably traumatic.

*

In Nikeah harbor, while overseeing the loading of their ship for Figaro, within striking distance of his goal at last, he thought he saw -

But that couldn't be. There were blonde women everywhere; he had been mistaken. As he got closer to taking back the castle, and all that entailed, he had been dogged by memories of his time with the Returners, of that sudden liberation from having to be king. Those days were over, and those people were gone. He couldn't let nostalgia overwrite his perceptions.

They sailed in the morning. If there was time, that night, he might seek this mystery woman out in town – some line occurred to him about “a kiss for good luck” – and prove to himself that she was not Celes Chere.

He saw her three more times, in his peripheral vision. Leaving the bar. Going down to the docks. Haggling with someone over relics. She wasn't Celes. He had seen Celes fall from the sky like the rest of them, and this woman, although she moved with a similar elegant economy, was obviously too thin –

And obviously keeping an eye on him. He was inspecting a crate of certain hardware particular to tunneling into a castle when he noticed her lurking just over his shoulder. “What's your problem?” he said, not as politely as he might have liked.

“Edgar,” said Celes, no more politely, “what the hell are you doing?”

It made sense, in its way. If anyone else was going to survive, it would have been the Magitek supersoldier. She was inhumanly tough, and her magic had countless applications toward survival even in this damaged world, and -

She was alive. He didn't have time to think through the implications right now – he had a castle to reclaim – but the mere fact that someone else had made it out –

When Sabin emerged from one of the market stalls to stand behind her, it was all Edgar could do not to break into an idiot grin. He strung together some garbled attempt at a blow-off and hurried away. He'd get them a message that night, if he could, but for now he had preparations to make, and a crew of robbers to keep motivated, and for that he needed his hands to stop shaking.

*

On the ramparts of Figaro Castle – open to the sky for the first time in nearly a year – Sabin said, “Y'know, Terra's alive, too? She didn't want to come with us, but she's doing okay.”

“I'm glad to hear it,” said Edgar, feeling the familiar sandstone of the wall rough on his palms. He was back, although not for keeps. Not just yet.

“Oh – don't mention it to Celes, though. She took it pretty hard. Terra staying in Mobliz, I mean.” Sabin frowned in thought a moment, and then added hastily, “Don't tell her I told you that, either.”

“Don't worry,” said Edgar. “My lips are sealed.”

Sabin was squinting off into the desert. “If we can figure out where the Veldt ended up, after everything got shuffled around, I bet we'll find Gau. I have a good feeling about Cyan, too, but I'm not sure where he would've ended up.”

“An interesting question. The reports about Doma are... odd. If the castle is still unfit for human habitation, I don't have a second guess.”

Sabin shrugged. “Hey, I know what I feel.”

And that was Sabin for you. He always had. Edgar said, “Do you have a good feeling about anyone else?”

“Well...” Sabin thought about this a while. Then he grinned, and threw an arm heavily around Edgar's shoulders. “I always knew _you_ were gonna be okay.”

“Yeah,” Edgar said, and smiled, and couldn't remember whether he was lying. “I knew you were fine, too.”

*

Walking the newly unfamiliar road from the castle to Kohlingen, Edgar asked, “An idle question, Celes, and please don't take it amiss, but – that bandana –”

She looked defensive. “It was tied to a bird. I don't know more about it than that.” And she moved away, closing off all conversation.

It was a data point. He guarded himself against any great excess of hope.

*

The _Falcon_ flew again, and she was a marvel. Edgar's unfeigned admiration of her design earned his way into Setzer's good books, although he learned to be _very_ circumspect in suggesting any modifications.

But the _Falcon_ flew, and – got surprisingly crowded in surprisingly short order. The world became larger, even if it wasn't the one it had been before. One by one Edgar had to mentally un-bury old allies as they came aboard, much the worse for wear, but alive. Sabin's “good feelings” were unfailingly correct. Terra was more open to persuasion than she had first seemed. And if, on her boarding, she and Celes had immediately locked themselves into Celes's cabin and had not been seen until the next day, it was their own business. Thereafter Celes seemed – insofar as one could tell these things with Celes – happier.

In Jidoor, Relm came aboard with several entire suitcases crammed with art supplies and changes of clothes – and paused in the entrance hatch to tell Celes, “Oh, get this. There was a show last month with art from the Empire. I wasn't there, their stuff's trash – no offense – but apparently some weasely-looking guy broke in and stabbed a painting and got the shit kicked out of him. That sound like anybody we know?”

Celes and Edgar exchanged glances.

Celes said, “Where did that painting end up?”

*

As they stared down into the crater that opened on the Phoenix Cave, Edgar said, “This is probably going to be weird.”

Celes deadpanned, “You don't say?”

“I mean – even aside from whatever monsters or booby traps or geothermal hazards await us below. If by some chance Locke hasn't died – if he's still there, or if he's found a way back to Kohlingen with the stone –” It was unaccountably difficult to speculate about this out loud. He shook his head. “He's... not rational on the Rachel question. You know this. I know this. If at all possible, I think I should be the one to talk to him.”

Celes thought this over. “Well. You have known him the longest.” True. “It's probably the least loaded option.” Not necessarily. “If we find him alive.”

“If.”


	5. Chapter 5

Locke turned, and saw Edgar, and then took a step back, eyes wide. “Shit,” he said, wonderingly. “I heard the fumes in here could make people see things, but -”

“Oh, please.” Edgar waved a hand to indicate his own unkempt hair, pitted and mismatched armor, threadbare cape – and there was something up with his right leg. “You know you'd hallucinate me looking better than this.”


	6. Chapter 6

It was about a twelve-hour flight from the Phoenix Cave back to Kohlingen. Locke stayed up on deck for the duration, and whenever his attention wasn't engaged elsewhere he stared fixedly into the northwest. For the first time in a long acquaintance, Edgar was... well, not _afraid_ to approach him, not precisely that, but something in that neighborhood.

He'd either get Rachel back, and vanish with her into a mystical world neither Edgar nor anyone else had any part in – or his life's great mission would end in failure.

“Come on,” Sabin said, after they landed, and Locke went into town alone. “We're playing cards.” When Edgar didn't immediately respond, Sabin grabbed him by the arm. “I _said_ ” - raising his eyebrows and jerking his head meaningfully toward the captain's cabin - “we are _playing cards._ ”

“All right, I get it. I'm coming.” Of course, whatever its other features, this was also the town nearest Daryl's tomb, and the town in which Setzer had by all appearances stayed drunk for a solid nine or ten months; trust Sabin to think of keeping him distracted. 

Edgar played badly, but told himself he was doing this as a favor to the others.

After a few hours Locke came back. Alone. “Deal me in,” he said, pulling up a chair. Edgar looked at him closely, but didn't dare ask. Locke kept his eyes on his cards, and only shrugged ruefully and said, “Well. Can't win 'em all.”

*

The _Falcon_ had never been intended as a passenger vessel; they'd had to start doubling up on sleeping accommodations some time since. To spare Locke any awkwardness, from the moment he stated his intent to rejoin the fight – the morning after Rachel was buried – Edgar said, “Congratulations, you're with me,” and tossed him a duplicate key.

Locke caught it, but feigned offense. “What am I, twelve? When's the last time I needed a key to get in anywhere?”

“Oh, don't worry. Once you've opened the lock, you have twenty seconds to disarm a series of crossbow traps -” From across the deck Setzer shot him an unamused stare. He put up his hands. “It's a joke, Gabbiani, I haven't installed anything.” In an undertone he told Locke, “I'm swearing you to secrecy about the hot plate.”

Locke had no possessions to bring aboard except what he was already carrying. He took up no space in the cabin. He expressed an intent to sleep in a hammock, until Edgar set him straight. “This is a much bumpier ride than the _Blackjack_ , and you know how you get about turbulence. You may be my best friend, but I draw the line at listening to you retch all night.”

Being a bit of a dick was more persuasive than would be a show of real concern. The concern was there, of course, but Edgar had never known how to say these things without coming off patronizing. There was so little need for sincerity in daily life.

A bench on each side of the cabin folded down out of the wall – which sufficed for two beds, though when both were open it took up most of the space in the cabin. There'd been a scant supply of bedding material in the hold, but after a period of neglect inside a tomb it had all predictably started to molder. (Setzer had looked wistful at getting rid of one of the quilts; Edgar had not pried.) Edgar had to ask around to appropriate spare blankets and pillows from the others. He tried to make every unobtrusive provision for Locke's comfort, and then as often as not found that Locke was ignoring them and sleeping on a bare board with a single coverlet.

This worried him, but he didn't know if it should, or how to frame it as a joke if so, or if enough of their former intimacy remained for him to presume upon.

Neither of them slept much, but it seemed safest not to acknowledge this. On the fourth night after Rachel's resurrection – after three days of Locke forcibly acting as normal as any human ever had – Edgar was wakened by muffled sobbing, which, trying to be a good friend, he did his best not to notice. Absent a clear invitation, he was most comfortable not making these things his business, and mere proximity was not an invitation. Surely the best he could do was allow Locke some illusion of privacy.

In the morning Locke was once again scrupulously cheerful. “I had a thought,” he said.

“Wonders never cease.”

“Hey, fuck you, too, pal,” Locke said, without venom. “Anyway, there's something I wanna check out. I think the airship's gonna be a big help, if I can talk the others into it. Mind backing me up?”

Edgar's first rash thought was that he would sign his name to any project that might keep Locke moving forward in this post-Rachel universe, but he had enough sense not to say so. “Where are we headed?”

“Back to Narshe. If anyone's still alive there, I should look after them.” After a pause he said, “We. I meant _we_ should look after them. It's not like –”

“Say no more.” One only hoped Locke wasn't setting himself up for more disappointment.


	7. Chapter 7

It was an easier pitch than Locke had expected. “There were a few holdouts last time I made it here,” he said. “If anyone's still alive, we can offer to get them out, or bring them supplies, or – whatever. We can't let them be buried here.”

Setzer didn't look thrilled about someone else pledging the use of his ship for this, but Celes nodded. And Celes was the vote that counted. She was basically the boss of this operation now, for reasons that weren't totally clear, but, on merit, sure, absolutely, she deserved it.

(It had kind of stung, rejoining the Returners and discovering how much had changed without him. In the world before, it had been him, and Edgar, and Terra, and then built out from there, but the web of relationships was different now, and it felt kind of like he was intruding – like he was less important than he'd been.

Right at this moment as Celes was approving his plans, Terra was beside her, and Terra's hand idly slipped into hers. And honestly, good for them, he thought. Somewhat less honestly, he told himself, You had to know Celes wasn't going to wait for you forever. If she's happy with someone else, why would that hurt?)

“You can drop me off there,” said Locke. “If you don't wanna commit the _Falcon._ I know the people there. I can do some poking around -”

“No, Narshe is a big city,” Celes said, frowning thoughtfully. “Searching it will take time, and with storms getting more dangerous, any survivors may not have time to waste. If we're going, we're all going. We'll have a small team sweep each district in parallel.”

“So it's settled?” said Locke.

“We have the ability to help,” she said. “So we should.” She'd always been like that – made her decisions quickly and then talked like they were self-evident – but this sentiment was new. She hadn't _softened_ , exactly, but... Terra was beaming at her in approval, and she looked flustered.

Edgar said, “Figaro's fairly well positioned to offer aid, if it should come to that. We go in formally under my auspices – I can write a letter for each party leader. Lend the project a little legitimacy.”

“Oh, yeah,” Locke said dryly, “legitimacy. That thing you get from running heists all year. Makes people think, 'there's a guy I'd trust.'”

“This is no time for jealousy, Locke. If anything – I'm a hobbyist. Are my modest successes really that threatening to you?”

For all that had changed, at least this hadn't. At least he and Edgar could still count on each other for stupid shit talk. “Threatening? Nah. I'm embarrassed. You're my friend and co-conspirator of _how_ many years, and you learned that little? Your fake identity sucked, your only plan was to turn a bunch of starving thieves loose in your own home and hope they'd be polite enough to leave afterward, and if Celes hadn't backed you up, you totally would've died. You're lucky I even let myself be seen with you.”

Edgar went quiet. After a moment he said, “They weren't starving. However brief my tenure, I did try to look out for them.”

So that hit a nerve, Locke thought. Weird. He pivoted: “Okay. You still almost died.”

“I almost died,” Edgar agreed, more cheerfully. Sabin, passing by, smacked him upside the head.

“ _Anyway,_ ” said Celes – but she was smiling, a little. It suited her. (Gods, Terra was a lucky woman. He told himself, You're not upset about this. You're fine. We're all adults here. What, are you running out of other things to be sad about?) She said, “Locke, you're local. What's the best way to divide the city?”

*

After getting the lay of the land from a couple guys holding down the fort in the old University building, they split into twos and threes, as agreed. Every party got a letter from Edgar in case anyone doubted their purpose; every party had worked out a distress signal, whether a magical shower of sparks or one of these weird signal flares Setzer had been working on. Couldn't be too careful. Wolves openly roamed the streets, and the tracks of much larger things could be seen in the snow.

Locke's team was just him and Edgar, and for his part, he'd chosen the mining district. People in this part of town might not have had the cash to leave when everyone else did, or might've had nowhere else to go. They might still be hunkering down here, never expecting help. They might have already died in this unnaturally long winter. Either way, they ought to be looked after.

He let himself into a boardinghouse near the mine road. Snow had piled against the door, melted, seeped into the lobby, and refrozen into a skin of ice over the floorboards, which wasn't promising. If anyone still lived here they would've done something about that. Still. “Careful,” he said to Edgar, over his shoulder. “You take the ground floor, I'll go upstairs.”

“Got it,” said Edgar, carefully skirting around the frozen floorboards and moving back toward the dining room.

Belatedly Locke remembered that Edgar, unlike him, had never had to pick locks for a living, and said, “Hang on, I'll find you some keys -”

Edgar turned back. “Thanks, but I don't think your average doorknob will stand up to this.” He held up a hammer.

“Here I thought you were gonna tell me you had a machine for that.”

“Oh, I have _several_. But considering weight, fuel, startup time...” He shrugged. “Give me a shout if you're about to get mauled by a sasquatch or something.”

“Hammer work on those too?”

“It would eventually.”

There was no one in that building, or in the next five. No survivors, but no corpses either. Just – jumbles of stuff people had left behind.

Edgar was acting weird, too. Never starting conversations, but always answering too fast whenever Locke said anything, like he'd just been waiting for something to pounce on. And Locke caught him staring, at least twice. It was disappointing. He thought, Come on, Edgar, you used to be sneakier than that.

They got to the end of the street, and climbed onto the walkway to the next. Edgar began sweeping snow off it with the butt of his spear. Locke said, “Okay, out with it.”

“Pardon?” Edgar's face was blank.

“Anything you wanna say to me? Anything you wanna ask?”

“Nothing comes to mind. Unless you have any new theories about why everyone's gone.”

“The Elder had everyone evacuate. I just can't tell why. Or if they really managed not to leave anyone behind. Or... if anyone's ever coming back.”

He hoped they would. He missed Narshe, the way it used to be. He used to like sitting up here on the walkways and watching the plumes of smoke curl up into the sky, different shades of blue and gray and white mixing against the white of snow and the black of the mountain. It got to where you could see contrast you never saw before – you could pick out a whole rainbow where most of the time you'd just call that “gray” and never look twice. You could trace the threads back to individual chimneys and think about the individual families living their lives. He'd wanted to bring Rachel here. He'd had fantasies of a little cabin that they'd keep all snug and warm and bright – Rachel could go to the University if she wanted to, and she'd come home in the evenings and he'd have no idea how to help her with any of the things she was studying, they would all be way too complicated for him – Rachel had always been smarter than her family gave her credit for, and she could have done great things if not for...

“That's beside the point,” Locke said.

Edgar raised his eyebrows and paused in knocking snow down into the valley. The snow had this hard icy crust on top, so it took a couple hits to break it up. “I thought it _was_ the point.”

“It's -” Yeah, that had come out wrong. Locke sighed and restlessly snapped an icicle off one of the guide ropes. “Yeah. Okay. Saving people comes first. Obviously. But – do you even trust me with that? You trust me, right?”

“Why wouldn't I?”

“No, you tell me.” He gestured with the icicle. “You keep looking at me like you think I'm gonna snap.” He wondered if waving big pointy chunks of ice at people was really the act of an emotionally stable person, thought maybe not, and dropped it off the walkway to shatter on the black rocks below.

“You've been through a lot,” Edgar said neutrally. “Most people have. It's not... a judgment, per se.”

“But you're worried.”

“I have some concerns.”

Locke waited. Edgar didn't elaborate. They were running low on daylight – at this time of year the sun seemed to dive under the mountains between one breath and the next, sometime around 2PM. A breeze was picking up, and the walkway made more noise than it was supposed to. No one had been clearing snow off the boards this season. Meltwater could have weakened the wood. Locke had the sudden mad impulse to shove Edgar back onto solid ground before he lost him, too. Visions of a support beam giving out. A short fall, but long enough.

He made himself keep still.

Edgar said, “Of course, I'd be happy to be proven wrong.”

Locke jammed his hands into his pockets and turned away. “We should get inside.”

In uneasy silence they cleared a path through the snow to reach the street. At the end Edgar slipped on the ice where the walkway joined the cliffside, and for an instant caught all his weight on the injured leg he didn't talk about. He recovered in time, and stayed upright. Still, Locke saw it. Edgar's face went completely bloodless, and the pained breath that hissed out between his teeth hung in the cold air as a cloud of steam. But in a moment he resumed walking as if nothing had happened.

No one in the next building either. They cleared the rooms in silence.

Locke thought sometimes of saying “Okay, fine, you got me, I've been having these dreams,” but it felt like too big a thing to admit to. The dreams where Rachel was back and he couldn't even be happy about it, because it wasn't going to last, and he didn't think he'd survive that again – dreams where he looked the Phoenix in its huge burning eyes and just wanted to scream “Fuck off, you stupid bird, how many times are you gonna make me say goodbye?”

He looked over at Edgar. Edgar looked back at him. Locke said, unsteadily, “I think we can hit a couple more before nightfall,” and Edgar just nodded.

He was fine. It was basically fine. Rachel had always been a long shot, and the idea of explaining any of this, of turning himself fully transparent, made him feel sick.

Edgar was moving slower as the afternoon wore on, and had started leaning on his spear, and Locke felt a weird stab of guilt. I shouldn't have just been trying to prove I'm okay, he thought – I should've checked whether he is, too. It wasn't like you could count on Edgar to complain if something was the matter. Guy just _put up_ with stuff. “What's with the limp, anyway?” he said, and it sounded more aggressive than he'd meant it. “You ever gonna have Terra look at it?”

Edgar shrugged. “She has. She and Celes both. There's only so much magic can do – I was walking around on it for too long before anyone got to it. Might respond to surgery, if you know any surgeons still in practice...?” Locke didn't. “See? Didn't think so.” Edgar shook his head. “Even if there were, this is low priority. I'm used to it.”

“How'd it happen?”

“I don't know.”

“What?”

“My memory is a blank for a few weeks after the crash,” Edgar said, matter-of-fact. “I don't think I missed anything important – the broad strokes were easy enough to pick up. World ruined, obliterated my own connective tissue, et cetera.” He grinned ruefully. Locke did not smile back. Locke was thinking, Why does _everyone_ get amnesia? Am I cursed?

“So it happened in the crash?” he said, finally, with some effort.

“Most likely. It'd be strange if I got out unscathed. Really, it's surprising how many of us did – I had assumed you were all dead.”

“Yeah,” Locke said, subdued. “That's... what I thought, too.” Mercifully, they had reached the next house by now, and mercifully, the lock on this one looked interesting enough to keep him occupied for a minute or so. He blew on his chilled hands, flexed his fingers, and got to work. Edgar leaned against one of the porch columns to wait, staring out at the lengthening purple shadows in the street.

I thought you were all dead, too, Locke didn't say, that's why I went after Rachel instead. I thought it was the one thing I could fix. Damn bird lied to me. All my friends were out here all this time, and all struggling, and I never looked for you. I never even tried.

The tumblers finally clicked into place, and the lock popped open. “Well,” he said. “Here we go.”

The place smelled awful. The air stirred by his entrance wafted a pile of white and gold fluff across the floor. Locke had the single fleeting thought, No, I'm not doing this, and staggered backward through the door. He collided with Edgar on the porch.

“You okay?” said Edgar, and then got a whiff of the air from inside. “Ammonia?”

“Birds,” Locke said. “Whole place is bird shit and old feathers. Someone was – raising a bunch of them, I don't know -”

“Weird. Any signs of life?” Locke shook his head. “Any signs of death?”

“Didn't look.”

Edgar looked thoughtfully toward the house, and then at Locke. “You want to sit down? I can open some windows. Air the place out.”

Locke smiled weakly. “Do I look that bad?”

“In a word, yes. Leave this to me.”

“No, hang on.” Locke shook himself. “I'll, uh... if you're taking this building, I'll go handle the next one. More efficient, right? Yell if you need backup.” And he walked away before Edgar could raise any objections.

This street was all tiny one-story houses crammed in cheek by jowl; going one door over wasn't fully enough to get him away from the smell. But they'd tried, whoever lived here – they'd really tried turning these couple hundred square feet of soot-stained timber into a comfy home. Whitewashed walls, couple nice rugs, bunches of dried flowers hanging from the rafters. “Anybody home?” he said, for form's sake. No one would be.

On the mantel there was a portrait of a woman, one of those two-tone profile views like people got carved into cameos, like someone had done the sketch but hadn't gotten the jewelry made yet. He thought it looked like Rachel. He told himself, It's not very detailed, it could look like anybody, you're shaken up anyway so of course you're going to see connections that aren't there. Birds everywhere, gods damn it all.

He wondered how long it would take Edgar to check next door. He wondered how much poking around in here he was justified in doing, if he really thought anyone would ever come back. He crossed to the fireplace and tipped the woman's picture face down.

When they'd evacuated, the resident had left behind a moderately stocked medicine chest – Celes would be happy to see this haul. More potions and bandages never went amiss. He let himself bask in this thought for a minute – how it'd be almost like she was happy to see _him_. He put the thought aside and went into the kitchen.

“Shall I spare you the details?” said Edgar, some time later, while Locke was poking through cookware. Did the _Falcon_ need more pans? Did it have the space? “Or do you want to hear something morbid?”

“Sure,” Locke said, “hit me,” so as not to let on he was startled. He hadn't heard Edgar come in. He did not actually want to hear something morbid.

“The previous inhabitant of the house next door was breeding canaries. For the coal mines. Judging by their sales records, though, they didn't have many takers.”

“Nah, they wouldn't,” said Locke, weighing a cast-iron skillet in his hands and then returning it to its hook on the wall. “This is Narshe.”

“Come again?”

“They keep this pretty hush-hush, but the chief mine engineer actually checks in with the Moogles any time the company wants to sink a new shaft.”

Edgar blinked at him. “You're kidding me.”

Locke shrugged. “They know these caves better than anybody. People only mine areas that get the Moogle seal of approval. Fewer accidents, fewer gas leaks.”

“I wonder, then...” Edgar unfolded a piece of paper from his bag. He had not only been poking through the business records of some bird breeder, he had stolen these records and brought them along for later reading. Honestly, what the hell _was_ he? “They started ramping up – well, production, euphemistically speaking – at around the time we went to war. Suppose they anticipated selling coal to one side or the other -”

“'Narshe is neutral,'” Locke muttered, in a snide imitation of the Elder.

“Or both,” Edgar agreed. “The wartime demand would be high. I think they were proposing the adoption of these birds as a measure to cut the Moogles out of it and seek out new veins independently.” He flipped to another page. “They had this mockup bird cage with an oxygen canister, so theoretically a bird could be resuscitated -”

“Huh. That's kinda nice of them.”

“- and taken down into the mines and used again. I don't think a safe and happy retirement was part of the plan, no.”

Locke turned his back on Edgar and tried to find something to do with his hands. Cabinet doors to open and shut. Something. “So these birds just suffocate and die and get brought back and do it again, until they finally stay dead or someone else says they're done. That's the idea?”

“Told you it was morbid. But here, they kept meticulous records up to the end – our bird seller ended up fleeing Narshe with six males and ten females, and released the rest of their breeding stock into the forest.”

“Is that really better, though?” said Locke. “Are a bunch of tame birds gonna know what to do in the world? In a world like this? I don't...” He swallowed. “Is it okay to let them go like that?”

Edgar said nothing.

Locke shut his eyes, and sighed, and forced something like a laugh. “All right. Fine. I give. I... could maybe use your help with something.”

“Of course,” said Edgar.

“Well, first of all, we gotta get all this back to the ship.” He showed Edgar the slightly smaller box into which he'd repacked the medicines. “But then there's...” His hand strayed to the place where the bag of ash lay under his shirt – the ash, and now the magicite. He stopped. It wasn't too late to back off and change the subject. It wasn't too late, yet.

He blurted out, “Would you mind taking the Phoenix off my hands? I'm – I think – probably not the best person for that job right now. I thought it was leading me somewhere, but – maybe I thought wrong.”

Edgar took it in stride. “Okay. Want me to hang onto it for you, or...?”

“No. I mean – magicite's magicite. Somebody ought to learn something from this. Give it to... whoever you think could use it. Whatever magic is going to come out of this thing. Do...” He waved a hand vaguely. “Do something that makes tactical sense. I don't need to know about it. I'd – actually, I'd rather not know. For now.”

Edgar nodded gravely. “I can do that.”

Locke reached for the bag again, but found himself hesitating. Ridiculous. He laughed a little, bitterly. “I just... all these years. And it's over. And I'm just supposed to – do something else now? Like, 'congratulations, you got what you wanted, but you wanted the wrong thing, you dumb shit -'” His voice was getting out of his control. He reined it in. “No. I shouldn't say that. Rachel's at peace, and that's – something. I couldn't have left her there. I shouldn't have put her there in the first place” - this was pointless. This was stupid, and it was pathetic. He tore the cord from his neck and handed Edgar the bag.

“I'll handle it.” Edgar put a hand on Locke's shoulder. “Thank you for trusting me.” Then he frowned. His fingers were dusted with white ash where they touched the bag. “Do you mind if I take a look?” Locke waved for him to go ahead. He opened the bag. His frown deepened. “Locke? What is this?”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess I didn't tell you. That's the funniest part of the story, right there. When the _Blackjack_ went down, I was holding... I think eight or ten Phoenix Down.”

Edgar stared at him. “And...?”

“When I came to after the crash, a bunch of them were spent. I must've died. A couple times.”

“You died,” Edgar said.

“Yeah. Crazy, right? That's why – I thought it was the Phoenix looking after me. I thought it brought me back on purpose, to go find it and do something with it, but -” He laughed again and shook his head. “It's coincidence. It doesn't mean anything.”

Edgar was still staring at him, the bag hanging limp in his fingers. “You died?”

“You said yourself, it'd be weird if everyone survived that. Turns out I didn't.” Locke shrugged. “Now you know. No harm done in the end.”

Edgar stared at him, saying nothing. Why wasn't he saying anything? What was that look? He shook his head and looked down again, poking through the bag for the magicite. “Locke,” he said again, under his breath, “what the _hell?_ ” He finally withdrew the gleaming stone that had once been a bird's heart, the curled and splintered shafts of a half-dozen feathers clinging to his hand. His face was blank. “You kept all the evidence,” he said, in an almost neutral tone. Almost. “Forgive me for saying so, but that's completely unhinged.”

“Yeah, I dunno, I was in pretty bad shape for a while. I kinda thought – they were like relics, you know? A sign that a miracle happened here.” He spread his hands helplessly. “Guess I know better now.”

Edgar did not return his crooked smile. Edgar's expression had turned – cold, actually. “This wasn't a miracle, no. It was sheer stupid chance. You happened to have the Phoenix Down with you. You happened not to lose it all the way down. You happened not to die in any way it couldn't fix. And still. Even with all of that in your favor, if you'd had any fewer than seven, you would still be gone.”

“Yeah,” Locke said, eyeing him warily. “That's kinda how it is. What are you mad at _me_ for?”

“I suppose that's nothing to you?” Edgar snapped. “Well, no, if it were trivial you wouldn't feel compelled to keep mementos, would you?” He made jerky, scornful gestures, and he stepped in closer, so that Locke had to look up to meet his eyes. “But it's normal. It's routine. Carrying around keepsakes from your own demise, thinking you're taking directions from a dead bird – No. That's insane.” Although his tone was tightly controlled, his voice grew steadily louder. “That's something an insane person would do. Speaking as your friend,” he began, and then broke off, searching for words – and finally landed on a harshly whispered “What is wrong with you?”

Locke took a step back. “Okay, first of all, quit looming like that, it's weird. Second of all, I don't think you have room to talk. Yesterday you were telling me you almost died taking the castle back, and you were laughing about it.”

“Yes - 'almost.' I _almost_ died. There's a key distinction here I don't think you're grasping.”

“And you were pretty calm about walking away from a crash where you thought everybody died. No memory? Only one working leg? No big, time to get into burglary -”

“We're not talking about me. You're the one who ... and anyway, what was I supposed to be doing? Wailing and tearing my clothes?” Edgar said scathingly. “I had work to do.”

You sure you have that the right way around? Locke thought. Or did you go invent yourself some work just to avoid thinking too much?

Edgar seemed to realize, belatedly, how far his temper had gotten away from him. A faint blush of shame spread over his face. He took a moment to collect himself, and then said, more calmly, “Yes – I thought everyone had died. When Sabin and Celes caught up to me in Nikeah, when we brought up the _Falcon,_ when we found your trail – I have never in my life been so happy to be wrong.” He put the Phoenix magicite back into the bag, pulled the drawstring tight, and slid it into his tool bag. “And now you tell me I wasn't. Okay. Fine. Carry on. It's not really my business.” He sounded bitter and exhausted, and like a shoddy off-brand replica of the Edgar from before the world ended.

“It _is_ okay, though. You know that, right? We're all here. More or less in one piece. I'm okay, you're okay, Sabin's okay -”

“You're not going to tell me Sabin died, too, are you?” He smiled mirthlessly and looked away. “I'd hate being the last to know.” 

In as long as they had known each other, as closely as they'd worked together – to the best of his memory, Locke had seen Edgar tear up maybe twice. Once on seeing Sabin for the first time in ten years, and one time when he'd gotten his hand slammed in a door. And now this. This was the third time. “Edgar – hey –”

“There's no one in this building,” Edgar said, and pointed toward the door. “I'll go to the next one. You know... in parallel.”

“Uh-huh. I don't think you get to play the efficiency card right now.” Edgar raised his head indignantly. Locke said, “It's okay. It really is.”

Edgar closed his eyes. He drew in and let out a measured breath. He made no move to dry his eyes, like he didn't want to concede that he was weeping, or didn't want to call attention to it. From ten or twenty feet away the illusion of self-control would've been perfect. Locke was not ten feet away.

“Right,” Edgar said, and blinked a few times, and swallowed. “Anyway.” It had strong overtones of “this never happened.” But the thought of leaving things there – carrying on like they hadn't seen each other with this uncomfortable clarity – was horrible. Edgar looked toward the door again, like he was seriously going to walk out, even now.

“I don't think so,” said Locke, and pulled him into a hug. Eventually, even Edgar's defenses failed.

What followed was quiet, and it was brief. But for a little while Edgar leaned into Locke's shoulder, his hands knotted in the back of Locke's jacket, and shuddered. Even through the extra layer of armored cloth worn against Narshe's cold winds and roving scavengers, Locke could feel Edgar's breath hitch. Like the grief and horror of the past year couldn't be denied anymore – like the nearness of every near miss had suddenly struck home. And he couldn't do anything about it. Neither of them could. The world had ended, and by sheer chance they weren't among the dead. Life had always been exactly this fragile.

Locke didn't know what to say. Even if he had, he couldn't have spoken around the lump in his own throat. He held on, tighter than was strictly comfortable, and hoped that spoke for him.

And then Edgar pulled himself together, and patted Locke's back as if Locke had been the one crying it out on _him_ , and Locke thought, You stupid bastard. You're ridiculous. Never change. But he also thought: Is this all you're gonna let me do? Does nobody get to be there for you any longer than this?

Edgar raised his head and pushed Locke out to arm's length, and held him there, with a lopsided smile. “Well. However it happened, we're alive, and that's what matters. The world was a much duller place when...” His voice was shading hoarse; he cleared his throat. “When I thought you weren't in it. That's all.”

“Hey. I missed you, too, you big weirdo.”

Edgar laughed, a little shakily. “A much more succinct way of putting it, thank you. Now.” He clapped Locke on the shoulder one more time, with an air of embarrassment, and let go. “We were looking for survivors, yes? Let's get back to it. And – I'll see to that matter you asked me about. Don't worry.”

Locke thought, If I was gonna worry, it wouldn't be about that.


	8. Chapter 8

It was happening again.

The _Falcon_ shuddered and listed to one side, and Setzer's strained voice came echoing down the speaking tube from the deck: “Any day now, Edgar.”

It was clear now, if it hadn't been before, that Setzer's old flame had been a mechanical genius. It was also clear that she could have used some oversight, or at least someone to call her out on her eccentric use of space – and that she had been _short._ There was no room to maneuver if one was, for example, six feet tall. Or if, hypothetically, one's mobility was slightly impaired, and suppose this impairment had not gone away no matter how consistently one ignored it. “Boiler three is venting steam. I can't get in there in the time we have.”

“Fuck,” said Setzer. “All right. Take boiler six offline.”

It would cost them significant motive power, but at least it would stop them corkscrewing into the ocean in the next two minutes. “On it.” He edged his way around the engine room toward the opposite boiler battery. Boiler six. Release valve. No problem. The _Falcon_ bucked underfoot, and he thought, If I trip. If I fall against any of these components and burn half my face off. What a loss for womankind.

He made it across. His leg did not betray him. Of course, the valve on boiler six was stuck, because nothing was ever easy and it was hard to get feed water free of sediment and about once a week they had to break everything down and scrub the tanks out, to avoid exactly this scenario, the pipes getting gummed up when they were already under attack -

“Edgar,” said Setzer's voice from the engine room wall, “give me an update.”

In the most reasonable voice he could muster, Edgar said, “I'm hitting the number six boiler head with a wrench.” He gave it another blow. “As one does.” One more. “This compartment is too small to get any gods-damned leverage -”

“Take it up with Daryl,” said Setzer, which, under other circumstances, would be significant – he rarely spoke of her by name. There was no time to acknowledge that now.

That last blow finally did it – steam gouted out into the air, and Edgar ducked down to avoid getting scalded. He backed away from the battery in an awkward crouch that his bad knee did not appreciate in the slightest, and returned to the speaking tube. “You should have steering now.”

There was a jerk; the ship rolled to starboard, and after a few seconds evened out. “Yep.”

Edgar let out a breath and leaned back against the wall, feeling the thrum of the engine around him. They'd need to land for repairs soon, and gods only knew how they'd get the relevant parts fabricated – but at least they would, in some form, be landing.

This comforting reflection held for two or, at most, three minutes – then a huge impact rattled the timbers and the _Falcon_ lost twenty feet of altitude. Edgar fell against the wall, twisting his bad leg, and for an instant his vision whited out with pain. Grimacing, he fought his way back upright. “What was that?”

“Somebody doubled back for round two,” said Setzer, with the perfect calm of someone contemplating something reckless. “Stand by.”

* * *

This big flying skull motherfucker waved a gnarly purple hand, and Locke – died.

Bound to happen. They'd been chasing this bastard across the globe – Doomgaze or Deathgaze or whoever – and whenever they caught up to it somebody died. This time he, Celes, Sabin, and Shadow were on Flying Skull Watch when it finally engaged, and this time it was him doing the dying. His fingers went numb. His throat slammed closed. He was lying on the deck and his vision was shrinking to a point. Then that point winked out.

The Phoenix broke his fall.

The heat of its feathers seeped into the cold space in his chest. It craned its long neck to look back at him, one huge eye sparking. Was it crazy to think there was recognition in that glance? What was it trying to tell him, and why didn't he understand?

Had Rachel understood? Or in the shadow of these huge wings, had Rachel just stared back mutely like him, and like him broken her own heart for the fifth time this year?

It was watching him still as every stroke of its wings lofted them upward through a black void – like it knew where it was going. Like it hadn't given up on getting through to him.

He thought: You know you're dead, right?

“Hey,” a voice was saying, “c'mon. You with me?” Hands grasped his forearm. “Celes is drawing the big guy's attention. Can you get in there and cut his claws?”

Locke was propped up against a locker of spare cables. Ice crystals plinked onto the deck around him – the shrapnel that escaped Celes's runic absorption field, too small to do any harm. It was Sabin kneeling in front of him, staring at him for signs of returning consciousness, rubbing Locke's wrists like that was supposed to do something.

“Okay,” said Locke. “Get inside its reach and do some knife stuff. No problem. I'm your guy.”

Sabin grinned in relief and clasped his shoulders. “You're okay.”

“I'm okay,” Locke agreed, and tried not to notice how intently Sabin was staring at him. He made shooing gestures as he got to his feet. “You're off babysitting duty, go back Celes up.” Sabin flashed him a grin and a thumbs-up and jogged back over to rejoin the fray. “You're fine,” Locke told himself, drawing his knife and trying to think about angles. “Not like you've never bitten it before.”

He knew damn well this time had been different, but he couldn't afford to think about that right now. There was no time to feel properly fucked-up about it. Maybe once it was all over.

At the stern Celes was still giving Doomgaze no ground; the blade of her sword sizzled and shone with absorbed magic, until it almost hurt to look at. The monster would get fed up and fly away soon – it had every time, and damn lucky it did, or Edgar and Setzer wouldn't have had time to fix the engine last time. But until the next time it booked it, they had to get a few solid hits in. Then rinse and repeat until the end of days.

Well. Figure of speech.

The hilt of a sword stuck out from the back wall of one of Doomgaze's eye sockets. Hard to say if that slowed the monster down any, but either way nice throw, Shadow. Hope that wasn't a sword anybody needed. Sabin was doing the kind of fancy footwork that tended to associate with shooting energy beams out of his hands soon after. Locke ducked into position beside Celes with an apologetic smile, she nodded, and the next time Doomgaze took a swing at her -

\- the little flesh it did have was stringy as hell, he'd been trying to slice through the tendons of the fingers but his knife just _stuck_ , and he had to let go or get dragged along the deck. He rolled to his feet and pulled a backup knife. “Celes -”

“I see it.” She had been working a spell already, and now pivoted – the point of her sword dipped – she aimed two fingers at Doomgaze and fired a bolt of lightning into the knife embedded in its hand.

It smelled like cooking flesh. Its claws spasmed. It _howled_ – but it didn't sound like a living thing, it just sounded like the air rushing past you, faster and faster as the ground loomed up -

“It's happening again,” said that voice, in the back of his head. “The Phoenix brought you back just for this. This is how you lose everyone you love.”

Doomgaze brought its thrashing fist down on the deck. The timbers held, but the _Falcon_ sank, again, sickeningly. The monster wailed, a thing with no voice forcing a hurricane up the wind tunnel of its throat, and it rained hammer blows down on this – this tiny, completely unarmored racing vessel bearing the only people who'd ever had any chance of taking down Kefka, and that chance slim enough – bearing every living person Locke still cared about.

He imagined all of them dead on impact. If he was honest, he imagined this a lot.

“This ends now,” said Celes. “We bring it to the deck and we kill it. I'm done chasing this thing around.” She turned back toward Setzer at the helm and shouted, “Hold us steady!”

He yelled back, laughing, “You think I'm not trying?”

Locke grabbed Celes's arm. “The balloon. If we get it onto the deck -”

Celes looked down, then up, then at the span of the monster's arms, gauging distances. “We have enough clearance. Get that other hand out of commission.”

“The horns, though?”

“I'll keep its head down. Move!” And she shoved him away, and took off down the deck. Doomgaze's good hand slammed into the timbers in the spot where she had just been.

He jumped onto it. He climbed up the knuckles toward the wrist. One good slice there -

It pounded its fist on the deck again. The impact rattled his teeth. He struggled to regain his grip, but it shook him off -

sent him sailing away into empty air.

Time moved slowly. He felt – calm. The voice in the back of his head said, “Hey. At least it's me this time.” If he'd come back just to die in some stupid avoidable way, fine. Better that than see his friends hurt, and slipping away.

He thought, I'm sorry. I got it all wrong. Phoenix... Thank you.

In his mind's eye it spread its wings and opened its beak and -

hissed at him. Like that seagull on the beach. And he heard Rachel's voice, in that tone of half-joking disappointment she used to use when he'd gone too far, saying, “Locke. How dare you.”

Time returned to its normal speed. He reached out. He got a grip on the Falcon's railing, which he almost lost again when his momentum swung him down and slammed him into the side of the ship. But it held. He got his other hand on the rail – lucky he hadn't popped his damn shoulder out – and took a moment to get his breath back. He would've waited until he stopped wanting to cry, but there was a fight on and nobody had that kind of time. He climbed up.

“He's back, guys!” he heard Sabin yell. Sabin was holding the monster down at the shoulder while Celes absolutely whaled on its skull. Shadow and his dog were keeping the hands occupied.

A hunk of magicite glittered from a cord around Sabin's neck, catching the sun. Of course, all magicite looked about the same, but...

Locke shook his head. “Damn right I am,” he shouted back. “Where do you need me?”

* * *

Locke shut the cabin door behind him and sagged against it, breathing out in a giant wobbly sigh.

“You have my complete agreement,” said Edgar, and Locke looked at him sharply.

“Weren't you in the engine room?”

“It's a short enough walk,” said Edgar. He was sitting on the bench that generally served as his bed, though for the moment he'd stashed the bedclothes and dumped out his tool bag next to him. Everything needed periodic oiling to protect against rust, and he had wanted something mindless to do.

“Yeah,” Locke said, at length, fighting down his evident chagrin. “Sorry. It's your room too.”

“I can leave,” said Edgar, starting to pack the drill bits he'd been examining back into their case. In point of fact, he wasn't sure he could stand up, much less leave; his traitorous knee had barely let him limp back here. At least it hadn't failed until the crisis was past. Might he always be so lucky. Might he hope someday to return to a life where everything didn't depend on _luck_.

“Nah, you're fine, I'm not – I'm not trying to kick you out or anything, I just – gods.” Locke scrubbed a hand over his face. “That was a bad one.”

“I got that impression, yes.” For the duration, the engine room had been sweltering, full of horrific groaning noises of unclear significance, and jerking around unpredictably, like the rest of the ship, along all three axes of motion. The occasional commentary down the tubes from Setzer had ranged from uninformative to profoundly alarming.

“I mean – we barely made it out alive.”

“That tracks.”

“Hey, do me a favor?” said Locke, with a sudden weird smile. “Stop taking this so calmly. You're making me look bad.” His tone said it was a joke; his face registered sincere resentment.

Edgar resumed putting his tools away. They'd keep; this conversation was gearing up to be something more urgent. He said, “Keeping up with that thing put a strain on the engine, and every time it made contact with the ship came with a risk of further damaging the systems. Now, luckily, when the _Blackjack_ went down Celes managed to keep a hold of all the magicite. Luckily, as soon as I realized air travel was in our future again, I convinced her to lend me the Stray. I had this idea that – if we lost buoyancy, I could at least cast Float on the boilers. It'd neutralize a significant amount of weight. Hopefully buy us time to manage a more controlled crash.”

“Oh.”

“But here's the thing: that's all theory. My success rate with magic is little better than half – which makes it worthless in daily applications. Repeatability is everything.” He controlled himself. “I digress. My point is. If Doomgaze had been more deliberate about attacking the ship instead of your party on deck, all our lives could have hinged on... well, a gamble. The hope that, if my first attempt failed, I'd have time for a second before we hit the ground. I would do my best, and I would have no control over the outcome. If I'm 'taking this calmly,' well, to be candid, it's because I'm so relieved I could absolutely _faint._ ”

Locke was staring at him. After a moment he said, “I don't know if you remember this, but – that was the last thing you asked me, when the _Blackjack_ broke up. If I knew Float.”

“Well, yes. I wouldn't make the same mistake twice.” He grinned, although he wasn't sure why. “Not when there are so many new and exciting mistakes to be made instead. Much more informative.”

Locke started laughing. “Man. We're just having a rough day all around, huh?”

“You could say that.”

Somehow this impressed them both as hysterically funny. Locke sagged onto the bench beside Edgar, wheezing, and for some time both parties were too busy laughing like maniacs to have anything coherent to say. What _was_ there to say? “Everything is terrible and dread is my constant companion”? It was absurd. The absurdity made it funnier. Edgar's sides ached, and he couldn't seem to get any air.

“Gods,” Locke said eventually, exhaustedly, “what the fuck.”

They had slumped into each other, shoulder to shoulder against the wall. It felt nice, somehow, despite everything. “Agreed,” said Edgar.

After a moment Locke blurted out, “I died again. You're not gonna freak out on me, are you?”

He felt compelled to assert that he had never freaked out in his entire life – but he was tired, and let the compulsion pass. Instead he said, “I thought you might.”

“Did you tell Sabin to do that?” Locke asked. Edgar feigned ignorance. Locke nudged him with his elbow. “When you gave him the Phoenix.”

“You asked me not to discuss that with you.” Granted, Edgar thought, I shouldn't have expected it to stay a secret for long. “You said to do something that made tactical sense, and I did.”

Locke elbowed him again. “And just, coincidentally, that happens to make your little brother a lot harder to kill.” He smirked. “Clever.”

Edgar felt his face warming slightly, but ignored it. “Two birds with one stone. I don't see anything wrong with that. And no, I didn't give him any specific instructions regarding you. I trust his instincts.”

“Ah. Okay.” Locke took a deep breath, and it audibly shook. “Well, just so you know. That new spell is... weird.” He swallowed. “I was awake the whole time. I was alive, I was dead, I was alive again – it happened so fast. It felt – I don't know if I want to say 'awful' or 'amazing.' The Phoenix, it...” He trailed off. Uncertain of best practices, Edgar put a hand on his shoulder. “It looked at me. And I know -” Locke shook his head. “I know that doesn't sound like anything, but it just -” He gestured helplessly. “I don't know. I – don't know if I can do that again.”

Edgar said, “At your feet is a bag. In the right front pocket you'll find a flask of... not great, but generally serviceable Nikeah liquor. You're welcome to it, if you need to take the edge off.”

Locke snapped out of his reflections on the Phoenix to give Edgar a sidelong look. “You're just full of surprises today. Traveling around with your own stash of rotgut. Doesn't seem like your style.”

“It's an artifact of the Gerad days,” said Edgar. “Or hadn't you heard? I'm a ruffian now.”

Locke snorted. “Uh-huh.” He leaned forward to fish through the tool bag. “Y'know, Sabin's been trying to tell me a story about that for like a week? He says, 'oh hey, Locke, I just remembered something, you're gonna love this,' and he gets about two sentences in before he cracks himself up and says I should just ask you.” He pulled out the flask and sat up to take a generous swig. “Hey, that's not awful.”

“A rarity in these troubling times,” Edgar said solemnly.

“So what _is_ the story there?” Locke said, holding the flask out to him.

Edgar accepted it and drank. “Well, I'm afraid Sabin's set me up for failure. Nothing I can tell you could possibly live up to that introduction. I decline.”

“Wait.” Locke frowned in thought. “Wait. Was Celes there for this? I could ask her.” He broke into a grin. “Yeah, you know what? I'm asking Celes. I _will_ get this dirt on you, ya big doofus.” He slung a jokey arm around Edgar and squeezed. Jokingly. “Count on it.”

Edgar made no attempt, whether joking or sincere, to break free. “Well, while we're here, maybe you can enlighten me on a, quote, 'weasely' character lately seen in Jidoor attacking a poster and getting worked over by security -”

“Doesn't ring any bells!” said Locke. “Now, if you asked me about a very fancy young professional unfairly detained for making a political statement -”

“I didn't hear anything about 'fancy.' I heard 'sweating profusely through a secondhand woolen suit.' It's like you've learned nothing from my example in all this time.”

“I'm not listening to a word you say about disguises. You just rearranged the letters in your name.” But as if realizing it had gone on too long to still be a joke, he removed his arm from around Edgar's shoulders.

“In my defense,” said Edgar, careful to register no reaction to this development, “it was a very strange time.”

“Yeah.” Locke sighed, and stared up toward the ceiling. “Still is.” Edgar handed him the flask. He took a drink, wiped his mouth, and passed it back. Still staring off at nothing, with a halfhearted chuckle, he said, “We're fucked, aren't we?”

Edgar said nothing.

“Think about it. We came through that fight by the skin of our teeth. Do we think Kefka's gonna go down _easier?_ ”

“Doubtful.”

“See? We're fucked.”

Edgar took a pull from the flask, screwed the top back on, and put it aside. You always seemed to get drunk faster at cruising altitude – Setzer had apparently weaponized this against customers at the _Blackjack_ 's betting tables, once upon a time – so for now, better not push it. Better just wait for the part where he started to feel warm. Titrate as needed.

“The company could be worse,” he said finally, and slipped his arm through Locke's, and gave him a tired smile.

Locke looked surprised. Then he smiled back, crookedly. “I don't hear you arguing.”

“I'm not going to.”

“Okay, good, we're on the same page.” Locke patted Edgar's hand, with incomparable mock dignity, as if some important point was being settled. “Everything sucks and we're all gonna die.” But he left his hand there. That part wasn't a joke. That part was sincere, and it made a difference, however subtle.

“Maybe so. But see previous statement.”

“Yeah,” Locke conceded. “Could be worse.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (In case I didn't get it across clearly, the idea in this chapter is Sabin cast Life 3 / Reraise on Locke before entering the Doom Gaze / Deathgaze fight. Then Locke instantly got flattened by L5 Doom / Lv. 5 Death. One could suppose he's the only party member whose level is divisible by 5 at that point, or one could be less literal about game mechanics and say that for narrative purposes the big flying skull monster's opening move instantly kills people based on some other arcane and invisible criteria. Anyway, that's why this resurrection is different than previous experiences.)
> 
> Ahem. Thanks for reading!


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